Can’t move for Muslims round here, says Jeanie.

But I’m the only Muslim in here.

Oh – Mustafa Hulusi’s around somewhere.

Usman laughs. Under his arm, the latest issue of BOMB.

I haven’t read that yet, says Jeanie.

*

What’s Jeanie up to? says Ollie, looking round.

Lottie raises her eyebrows at him. He stares back, blinks twice.

She gestures across the room. Assimilating Islam.

They watch.

It’s like watching the Crusades, says Lottie.

Shh, I’m trying to lip-read.

Can you do that?

It’s my superpower.

As the Muslim artist looks the other way, Jeanie holds both hands up in their direction, and shakes a fist next to her ear.

She’ll see us at the Ten Bells, says Ollie.

*

In the open doorway, Ollie puts a cigarette in his mouth and offers one to Lottie. Botoxed bitch, he says, aloud.

Oh, change the record Ollie.

He spits out his cigarette. What am I gonna do?

I don’t know Ollie, maybe you should sleep with her. What the fuck are these, Ollie?

Craven A. I got given them.

Lottie wrinkles her nose. I see why you’re trying to get rid.

Trouble is, says Ollie, when you’re as good-looking as I am, people expect you to be talentless, to even things up a little. Maybe I should disfigure myself in some way, cut off an ear or something.

It’s a good idea, says Lottie.

(He touches his chest pocket. The knife still there, days later: the shape of the handle through cloth.) I need to chuck a brick through a window, he says.

Shall we swing by the Ripper Museum?

Ollie glances back across the space at Jeanie, who is now talking to the Serota woman, apparently extorting her phone number. Yep, he says.

They wend their way back down Brick Lane. The touts don’t even bother with them.

It’s like they can’t see us, says Ollie, as a gang of young Bengali men walks through them. They close the gap between them as they pass the men. Lottie’s hair is shiny. Sharp.

We’re the fair folk, she says.

*

On Cable Street, at the Ripper Museum, a suffragette is spray-painting a graffito onto the shutters. They approach and watch her work.

On fucking Cable Street, says Ollie. Fucking tossers.

Shall we help?

They drag over a couple of bin bags and rip them open in front of the door, spreading the detritus along the pavement.

The suffragette finishes her tract and nods a goodbye at them. She is about to conceal her spray can in her costume but instead holds it out to Lottie. Lottie takes it and the woman hurries back around the corner.

We need to get the pavement and road in too, says Ollie. The shutters will be open in the morning.

How d’you spell misogynist?

Not like that, but it doesn’t matter.