‘Can you see that dog?’ he said. I looked, but there wasn’t one.

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Black Labrador.’

‘Cute!’

‘It’s running up and down the beach. It looks so happy. It’s like …’ He adopted a gruff doggy voice. ‘Hello, beach! I’m looking for sausages. Do you have any sausages, please, beach?’

I joined in, mimicking his dog voice. ‘If I dig I might find some sausages. A big hoard of them buried by pirates.’

‘Pirate sausages are the bestest sausages.’

We basically just talked nonsense for about an hour, and then I stood up.

‘I’m a bit cold,’ I said. ‘I guess you’re not.’

‘Nope. I don’t feel anything.’

I reached out to touch his arm. It didn’t work. I still forgot.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I said. ‘I came prepared.’

I plugged my earbuds in and put my phone back into my pocket, noticing a text from Jack. Sorry if I came on too strong the other day, he said. Yeah, I’d like to be friends. We could go for a coffee sometime.

Jack was lovely, but I tapped out a quick Sure, I’ll let you know when I’m free and muted the phone. I was with Joe. The technology side of things was boring for him now. After the first flash of amazement at the changing role of the phone, there was really no need for him to be astounded by the fact that technology had developed over twenty years. It wasn’t remarkable, or even interesting.

‘Yeah, and I’ll just walk around looking like I’m talking to myself,’ he said. ‘Who cares? It doesn’t matter. These aren’t real people anyway. None of this has actually happened and no one will remember it.’ He shook his head. ‘Bodmin Leo was more eloquent about that. It’s a headfuck, but it’s a headfuck that brought me to you.’

‘It is.’ I took a deep breath and just walked with him, enjoying the magic that had brought us together.

We walked back across the beach and along a few streets, and then right to the edge of town and out into the countryside. We didn’t talk much. It was nice just to be side by side, in the same place at different times. The town was smaller than I’d always thought: it took us less than half an hour to reach the open fields, and then we looked at each other, grinned and ran up a hill.

The sun was shining. Birds were singing. The air smelled like springtime. I felt warmth on my face, felt my blood pumping as I ran. I realized that I hadn’t exercised for ages. It was a good feeling.

‘This is lovely,’ I said, but when I looked at Joe his hair was wet.

‘In a weird way,’ he said with a little laugh, ‘yeah. I guess it is.’