‘Right, well, I’ve got to get some supplies before they let us in. Can’t make it through a Fassbinder marathon without snacks to offset the emotional trauma,’ Ishai said. My heart sank: so this wasn’t going to be a spiritual companion piece to Jurassic Park. ‘Monica’s running late but she’ll be here in a minute. We should all get a drink after.’

‘We should, definitely,’ Patrick agreed, raising his hand to wave him off. ‘Good to see you, mate.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ I called, wondering if we should also be stocking up on reinforcements. If I was going to be bored and/or offended, I should at least get a bag of Maltesers for my troubles. I glanced up at Patrick. ‘Do you want to meet them for a drink after?’

‘God, no,’ Patrick scoffed as the usher opened up the door to our screen. He rested his hands on my shoulders, walking behind me, leaving me Malteser-less. ‘Ishai’s fine but Monica I can’t deal with. She works in publishing which means she knows everything. She’s always trying to give me advice and it’s incredibly patronizing.’

‘Maybe she’s trying to be helpful?’ I suggested.

‘She’s edits children’s books,’ he replied. ‘She doesn’t understand literary travel memoirs in the slightest.’

It did, in fairness, seem as though Patrick’s chosen genre was somewhat niche.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the small screening room, following Patrick up to the second-from-back row, making our way to the two centre seats.

‘How is the book going?’ I asked as we sidled past the two men already situated on the end of the row. When someone approaches your row, you stand up, I fumed silently, you don’t shuffle your legs to one side and force me to slide my arse over your knees. Down with the patriarchy.

‘Ugh,’ he rolled his eyes and gagged. ‘Slowly. I really shouldn’t be out of the house. I should be chained to my computer until the end of time.’

‘Right, sounds tough,’ I agreed, wondering if he fancied being chained to me instead. ‘I got a date to record my first podcast with Snazzlechuff today. We’re recording it live at this thing called WESC in a couple of weeks.’

He took his seat and grinned as the screen glowed white in front of us. ‘I only understood about a third of those words and I’m a writer. You’ll have to explain it all to me on Saturday.’

‘So you’ll come?’ I whispered, shifting my inside voice to my inside-the-cinema voice. ‘To Sumi’s birthday?’

He turned his light blue eyes onto me, lit up in the semi-darkness.

‘I’m not saying no but Sumi doesn’t really like me, does she?’ he said. ‘Are you sure she actually wants me there?’