‘Oi,’ Dan said, ‘this is me, not Alex,’ but she didn’t hear, she was away upstairs, closing the bedroom door, so he just jogged down to the kitchen and let McCulloch out of the back door to sniff the wet night air. He switched on the radio, retuned it from Katelin’s Radio 4 to his own 6 Music, and there was Richard Hawley, crying a tear for the man on the moon, but too far away, in this basement, for Katelin to hear. Then Dan turned on his phone to find Alison, and saw she was almost lost among a fever of notifications, none of which held any interest for him tonight. @AliConnorWriter followed you; that’s all he was after, and there she was, awaiting his attention. He pushed aside a pile of magazines on the sofa and sat down, and he wondered, was this juvenile? This avid interest in a woman he’d only ever known as a girl? But then: Fuck it, he thought, life is a weird and wonderful thing, and this isn’t any old girl, it’s Alison Connor. He tapped on her profile to have a look at what she’d said since he last checked: not much, just something he didn’t understand, intended for a woman called Cass Delaney, whom Dan now knew – after a spot of judicious stalking – was a journalist in Sydney, on the Australian Financial Review. He considered the fact that Alison Connor was fully aware Daniel Lawrence still existed and that, having discovered this, she’d decided to be nice and let him know she knew. He checked the time in Adelaide. He looked at her profile picture again. He thought he really should read her book, although he hadn’t read anything other than music biographies for about ten years and he hated the distinct possibility that he wouldn’t like it. He heard McCulloch scratch at the door so he let him back into the kitchen and, for a while, the two of them sat side by side on the sofa, the dog watching Dan as he tried to compose a message to Alison. He’d decided, over the past few weeks, that if she ever followed him back, a short, friendly, direct message – privately sent, obviously, not there for all the world to see – would be the thing. But Jesus, everything he tried sounded inane. Hey, Alison, fancy meeting you here! Or Hi, Alison, how’s life? Or Good to hear from you, Alison. Jaunty, inquisitive, sober; every approach sounded like somebody other than Dan: somebody dull, somebody desiccated, someone to whom @AliConnorWriter might very well never reply. He sat there in the cold kitchen until even McCulloch gave up on him and went to sleep, and it wasn’t until Dan was calling it a day himself and heading upstairs, mission unaccomplished, that he had an idea of such simple brilliance that he wished he was still downstairs with the dog, because at least then he could’ve shared it. He carried on past the bedroom door and went up to his office. There, on his laptop, he did a quick search for Elvis Costello and the Attractions, 1978, ‘Pump It Up’, and there they were. A pure white studio set, Pete Thomas’s perfect drums, Steve Nieve spinning magic with organ riffs, chic geek Elvis, sneering through the vocals, dipping and staggering on rubber ankles. Dan watched it through a few times. Total bloody genius. And this is what this video would say to Alison Connor: ‘Remember this? Because to me, it’s totally unforgettable.’