‘Out of all the people who come and go at your place, all of them and all your brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, workmates and neighbours and just … out of everyone you know, is there anyone you’d trust to do that for you? Like, to choose what stays and what goes?’

Kon smiles. ‘Sure. I can think of, oh, ten, fifteen people. Maybe more.’

‘Really?’ Does she even know that many people? If she counts everyone at work, including the casuals, then maybe. ‘You wouldn’t worry that their idea of the important stuff will be different to yours?’

He considers it. ‘There’s this artist in London, right? He got all of his stuff together. Like, everything. Chairs and towels and empty chip packets. His own art and pieces from friends. Photos, letters. His bloody car, which was a Saab or something. And he destroyed it all. Like, every single thing he owned.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Don’t know if he had any, but if he did they’d have been in there.’

‘No, I mean was he on drugs? Is that why he did it?’

‘No, no. It was art. He did it in the middle of Oxford Street. Invited people to watch. Put on a boiler suit, played some Bowie and smashed it all up into nothing. It took weeks.’

‘What a terrible thing to do. You’d have to be a psychopath.’

‘Well, he was being deliberately provocative. Challenging people to think about consumerism and identity and all that. Like, who are we without our possessions?’

‘If he wanted to know who he was without his possessions, he could have given them away.’

‘Yeah, but that’s not art. It’s just, like, a life experiment.’

‘I guess. Sounds like a dickhead, though.’

‘Probably he is, but here’s the interesting thing: the public was mostly on board—critics, too. It was all, Down with consumerism, smash up that big-screen TV, pulverise those state-of-the-art speakers, but when it came to the love letters and photos, the art, they were like, No, that’s inhuman. Those things aren’t objects. How could you?’

Nic is still, concentrating on her breathing. The story feels like a trap but she doesn’t know what kind or when it will spring.

‘I think it tells you that most people agree about what’s important. Most people found the destruction of those particular items painful, considered them a different category.’

To anyone with a brain—with a fucking heart—it all would have been painful, she wants to say. A Saab! In her whole life she will not earn enough money to have a bloody Saab. Or a TV not from Kmart. Or half the shit the wanker destroyed.

‘What did he do with it all, after? The smashed-up stuff?’

‘I don’t know, actually. Chucked it, I guess.’