She turns to me. ‘You know how old Sid was when he died? Twenty-one. Just a kid. John Lydon went to LA and got a tan. It was a game, wasn’t it?’

Music. I can talk music if that’s what Simon wants. Or Simone. ‘Maybe the Saints were right when they said they were just posers. The Sex Pistols.’

Simone doesn’t move. I think she’s watching the TV. ‘It was all just Malcolm McLaren’s art project, maybe.’

‘And not punk at all. Wasn’t punk supposed to be about cutting through the bollocks and being what you are? You’re the punk.’

I can hear a laugh in there. Simone leans forward and puts her glass on the coffee table. There are more squeaking and scrunching sounds as she does it.

‘I am,’ she says, in a stronger voice. ‘I am the punk. The big decrepit scar-chested man-girl punk.’ She raises a smooth cream-coloured fist and throws a short punch, a jab. Lifts her other hand and punches its palm. ‘I just feel better this way. It’s a relief. A release. You’d be surprised how much better it feels. It’s me.’

She reaches into a pocket in the robe, one I haven’t noticed. She feels around, then pulls it wider open so that she can see into it. When she takes her hand out and opens it, the two figurines are in her palm, the Austrian and Napoleon.

‘And this is me,’ she says. Or Simon says. ‘Frocks and a smooth complexion and tiny soldiers. WTF, as the young people say.’

Faye laughs. ‘They do. So much that I saw the World Taekwondo Federation changed its name.’

Frocks and a smooth complexion and tiny soldiers. My brother and his alter ego. My brother and this other person who is also him. Simone is not a side, like a right side or a left side.

‘Are you . . .’ I need his words for it. Hers. I need the language. ‘Like, give me a bit of leeway on the wording here, but are you trans or is this its own thing? Are you . . . are your pronouns different? Are you and Faye . . .’

‘Well,’ Simone says. It is killing me that she has no expression I can read, that she is always blank as a doll. ‘Kudos to you for being at least semi-woke when it comes to the issues. More than semi. I’m he/him when I’m Simon. Still that. It’s not sexual and it’s not exactly gender identity. There is no conflict with Simon. It’s also not a disguise, even if it does involve costumes, and even if my build has made it a bit more Mrs Doubtfire than I’d like. I’m working on that, though, as you’re aware.’