I felt him, smelt him, as I squeezed past. We’d never been to the cinema together before. Our hanging-out had mainly taken place at the house or at Connelly’s. An awkwardness rose between us. We smiled in unison.

I’d only known Dale for three months at that point. He was already a tenant of the house on Lynton Road when I’d moved in. I’d gone to the viewing in a state of desperation. Dale was at work, but Mr Papadopoulos, the breathless, fleshy landlord, showed me round.

‘This would be your bedsit . . . You share bathroom and kitchen with nice young man who live in room opposite. I’m in flat upstairs . . . Very quiet. You can come straight away. Anna, the other girl . . . nice girl . . . left one night and never come back . . . Left me up the shit’s creek.’

I wanted to cry as I stared into the damp-smelling room, decorated with greying woodchip, double bed on one side, brown velour sofa on the other. A torn paper lantern hanging from the ceiling. The only thing brightening the place was a lurid green dreamcatcher with dangling pink feathers hanging from the bedhead that I knew I’d be immediately throwing out. Dreamcatchers scared me. My dreams were something I’d never want to be caught. But after the horrors of the previous places I’d viewed that day, and the fact it was available immediately, I was relieved to accept.

I’d not long left Manchester behind, it all behind, and moved into my first London abode. A room in a house belonging to a middle-aged actor called Rupert James. It was ‘bijou yet airy’, aka minuscule with a window. But Rupert was interesting – colourful, let’s say, and I presumed gay. The roll-top bath had sold me. I’d only seen the likes of it in magazines. Above it was a shelf on which sat a skull. I hoped it was a prop from a Hamlet production and not his previous tenant.

All went well for a couple of weeks until one day I returned from work to find my bedroom had been cleaned and tidied. Bed made. Dirty clothes picked up. Dirtier knickers ditto. And Blusha, my one-eyed elephant, tucked up neatly under the covers with only her trunk on show. I was uncertain who was being the weirdo, him or me. But I didn’t like it. Inside.

Then one evening I went into the kitchen and there he was, smoking an enormous joint and holding an even more enormous glass of red wine, which explained his eyeballs and skin always having a matching crimson hue.

‘Constance.’ He removed a glass from the draining board, filled it with wine to a level higher than his own and handed it to me.

‘Constance, my dear, I need to ask you something.’

It was clear he’d noticed my change since Tidygate. I decided I’d be brave, tell him, politely.