London. A city with a population of nearly nine million and there was I, weaving souls, avoiding bodies, a stranger to them all. The story goes that when I was born, my parents called me Eleanor, after ‘Eleanor Rigby’. A couple of days later they changed their minds, concerned I may fulfil her prophecy. Instead, they named me Constance after my grandma, who was decapitated in a car accident when my dad was only five years old. For some reason, they didn’t mind me fulfilling that prophecy. Not that it mattered. I was already Eleanor. No one can escape their destiny.

After joining my troops for the Friday-night commuting battle, we stormed the Tube station as our opponents attempted to leave. I found myself behind a particularly annoying man, shuffling along, typing into his phone, oblivious to other people. Instead of politely, patiently following his snail pace, as I ordinarily would, I pressed my undamaged fist into the hollow of his back, while thinking of you, him, her, Dr Franco when I shouted, ‘I don’t want to do this. It’s pointless,’ and his annoyingly calm reply: ‘I understand, Constance. Shall we say a week on Monday?’

The man turned around. Brow furrowed. I probably would have felt bad at that point, had he not also had a ridiculous handlebar moustache. ‘I’m so sorry – someone was pushing into me,’ I said.

Surviving the scrum, holding on to the yellow pole inside the carriage, I wondered how many of us squashed in there felt as isolated as I did. Loneliness isn’t reserved for the elderly at Christmas, like John Lewis would lead us to believe. It had nothing to do with the nine million people at my fingertips. It was about not being truly seen, connected to another. The day I met you, I ceased to be lonely. And I didn’t want to go back to being so again.

Costcutter was far too bright. Armed with a little extra money after having bought a cheaper morning-after pill, I made a dash towards the booze aisle but was distracted by a buy-one, get-one-free Jaffa Cakes stand displayed under a hypnotic flickering fluorescent tube. I threw four packs into the rusty basket.

Aside from me, Mum’s best friend was Martini. Or Martin, as it became known between us. She needed him. Just like she needed Dad. On good days she’d say, ‘I haven’t spoken to Martin today.’

‘Well done,’ I’d say, followed by a misguided moment of optimism. Until something occurred. Be it a small thing: a bill, forgetting to buy milk when she went to the shops or seeing a happy couple on TV. Then it would change to ‘Martin and I have things to discuss.’ And I’d lose her to her bedroom.

I didn’t buy Martin. Because I despised him for what he did to her. I opted for a litre of Vladimir instead.