She turned and went to her friends. They unsaddled themselves from the wall and the group headed out on to the main street. Feeling woozily, torrentially fifteen himself, Bobby stood there with the ­ten-­spot crushed in his hot grip and a corona of flush diffusing across his pocked cheeks as he waited to see if the girl he’d known as Becky would at least look back.

The Land Rover nearly struck him as he wafted towards the ­shopping-­centre exit. He stood in place in order to let the monstrosity eke by, but instead it eased to a halt and the passenger window slid down. As Bobby looked in, he caught the man hastily sucking in his gut before leaning across the ­latte-­coloured leather of the passenger seat. It was the man with the baby Becky had served before Bobby.

‘I thought I recognised you,’ the man said.

‘Huh?’ Bobby said.

‘I was at one of the reading nights at the Andromeda bar, like a month ago. I saw you read. You were good.’ When Bobby did not respond the guy lowered his eyes and said, with the grave deprecation of a bad actor, ‘I ­mean – you wouldn’t have known I was there. Not that it matters if you did.’

Then he looked up and smiled. Bobby stared at his teeth, which were neatly aligned and all the same, ­toothpaste-­ad hue. He appeared to be nothing more than a nondescriptly handsome wodge of heteronormative generica, tidily styleless in a sweater and chinos, but his dopily enthused expression was so innocuous it was unnerving. And Bobby felt, unmistakably, an emanation, the old encoded carnal pang, the way the air tautens right before a sudden burst of rain. He uptilted his nose to signify scepticism, and also because he believed this angle resolved the geometry of his face into its most attractive configuration.

‘A lot of people come to those things. Actually, that’s not true. Barely anyone comes. But yeah, if you say you were there. Well. Good for you.’

‘It’s an interesting scene.’

‘It’s interesting if you’re into it.’

‘But it’s impressive. Getting up there and actually doing it.’

‘Anyone can,’ Bobby said. The baby in the rear of the Land Rover made a noise. ‘That your baby?’

The man shifted in his seat. ‘Oh, uh. Oh no.’

‘That’s a disconcerting answer.’

The man’s grin broke. He reached into the back and grasped the baby’s foot. ‘I look after the kid. It’s my job, sort of. This is my ­half-­sister, Saoirse.’

‘Saoirse get high with you or what, then?’

‘Well—’ The man blushed. ‘No, but she’s a good accomplice, ­ha-­ha.’ He actually said ‘ha-­ha’. ‘She keeps quiet about these clandestine little runs we make.’