She tries. She thinks back through the maze of the evening. The feel of her feet on the carpet. The air, cool under the hem of her dress. In the lobby of the cinema. People standing around waiting. They aren’t the important people. The celebrities go somewhere else. But these people wait and they look like they might be important, or at least that they’re used to importance, accustomed to it enough that this lobby, this carpet, none of it matters.

They sit at a table. Rose, Jacqui, Rachael. He comes over. He speaks. They stand. She can feel the story surround her. He is handsome. He holds a hand to her arm.

He is handsome.

‘You don’t know his name?’

Rose raises her eyebrows apologetically.

‘Oh my god.’ Jacqui turns to Rachael. ‘She doesn’t know his name.’

‘I can’t believe you don’t know his name.’

Rachael’s eyes shine bright.

‘Does he know your name?’

Rose shakes her head.

‘But he kissed you!’

He kissed her. Lips, the wet strangeness of a tongue. Rasp of stubble. A hand at the small of her back.

‘Oh my god,’ says Jacqui. ‘Don’t worry!’

‘I’m not worried,’ says Rose. Her voice is firm. ‘I don’t care.’

They don’t reply. They watch her as she walks off to the cupboard. Her legs move slowly, her head remains still. Her shoulders are thin.

On the train home, Rose curls up in her chair, her knees by her chin, her arms wrapped round them. Her eyes rest on the fields, on the cars, the houses. On the tick of the pylons, the clouds in slow pyramids, the swirling birds.

She remembers him.

He comes to the table. She stands with him. He is shorter than her. Rachael and Jacqui stand too. They talk. He asks things. She says nothing. Not one word. His hand rests on her arm, the slightest touch, but it rests there, like any moment he might grab her tight and usher her away somewhere.

They go in to watch the film.

In the dark she feels his fingers. He isn’t there, but his fingers are. They press, ghostlike, into her skin all through the film, and at the end, when the lights are on, and they walk out, he’s there again. He walks over to them. He is alone. In the evening, Leicester Square is bright, and the London night sits waiting. She is to go home, soon, not yet, but soon, and he takes them to a bar, and she goes, and no one asks how old she is, because tonight she is someone new. London Rose. Rose in a dress. Rose with the hot marks of fingers at the back of her elbow.

He buys drinks. She asks for coke. She gets rum and coke. She drinks it, at a table, and the sweetness of it seeps into her. And she starts to talk.