‘So, a long time ago, well, two months or more, anyway, Jay told me about this song that you can only find here. He quoted some lyrics, said I made him think of them, and when I tried to look up the song, he said they only play it in some bar here. I want to, well, I suppose I want to find the song.’

We walked through London, entering bars at random and asking after the lyrics. It was an aimless quest, of course, indubitably ill-fated when it came to fulfilment, and after a couple of hours, I said, ‘It’s okay. We’re done. I just needed to look for it.’

David looked me straight in the eye and told me he thought I was the freest person he had ever met, an absolute hedon, and that he wanted to embrace life like I did. I looked at his half-head of pink hair and sad, sad eyes and wished it were true, then hoped that maybe it was.

Outside, the sky was dusty with light. Leicester Square was sending a thousand twinkles up into the air and we walked under the diffused glow of them all, tracing our steps on to the streets of London. I idly wondered, perhaps out loud, whether the ground was an alive thing, whether every foot that fell upon it was an invisible line left like so many words and kisses and bruises on our bodies. Whether it needed our tread upon it, the way we needed to be touched. Without us walking it, would the ground fall away? Would it cease to live?

David held my hand.

Near Piccadilly, three storeys of a building reverberated with an inviting bass, and we held our breath.

I turned to David. ‘Are we drunk enough?’

‘I am. Are you?’

‘Yeah, I think so. Ark?’

‘Let’s do this.’

There are always an initial few moments of jolted apprehension when you step into a club. It’s dark and loud and filled with people, all of whom look beautiful until you look at them in the light. But we adapt quickly. We drink more drinks and get closer to the music and turn into one of the beautiful people ourselves.

Well I just dance the way I feel

We had segued into our environs and lost each other. I was standing with a nameless boy, and I kind of wanted to push his hand off my hip but I didn’t. He said something. I got distracted watching his blonde hair skim the rims of his eyes, getting irritated by the fact that he wasn’t brushing the off ending locks away, then remembered to smile a vague assent. Thank God for the rules. Thank God for this game.

He smiled too, and shook his head, pointing up at the ceiling in the somehow-universal gesture referring to the music being played, and said in a louder voice, ‘Good song, yeah?’