If I moved in with Graham, I’d surely never leave him or he me. Which was great, of course it was great. Except, I feared that’d be it. Trapped in a life I hadn’t quite intended, I’d never be able to change, to know myself beyond the stencil of my upbringing.

Besides, there were times when a small, unexpressed part of me yearned for another kind of life, to be another person, even. Once, walking home from Telford train station, I passed a pulsing derelict house bathed in ultraviolet light and longed to go inside. Another time, dancing alone in my room to a Lacuna Coil CD I’d bought in imitation of a woman in the queue at Tower Records, I felt as if my fingertips were touching the edge of another world . . .

Yet when I watched classic films with Graham on his worn leather sofa, my perspective wavered. Much as wilder moments attracted me, the pull they exerted passed. In our different ways, what we both wanted was similar. We shared values and interests but also each had our own dreams. What I ought to do was tell him about lives that intrigued me. If I told him of my longings, he’d tell me his in turn.

So late one November afternoon, naked in bed with a bottle of red wine, I told Graham about my colleague, Sabine.

After I’d described how she looked, how she talked, and the places she’d traveled, I said that she’d worked in bread. They’d baked through the night, done drugs, and gone to the pub in the morning. Graham didn’t look impressed. I recounted the time with Sabine and the CEO and the cuisse. He wasn’t impressed by that either. Then I told him she was part of a global anti-capitalist movement. If this impressed him marginally more, it was all the encouragement I needed.

“Sabine’s the coolest person I’ve ever met,” I said.

“Ever?”

“Everything about her is strange and beautiful. From her blue-black squinty eyes—”

“She’s squint?”

“On her, it looks good.”

“Right,” said Graham.

He strained his face to aim both eyes at my nose.

I swatted him with a pillow.

“We don’t talk much,” I said, “but if I catch her with a faraway look, I pelt her with a jelly bean. Same if she catches me. Sweet start to a friendship, huh?”

He raised an eyebrow. “A friendship?”

“I hope it becomes a friendship.”

At university I’d slotted into groups I had little in common with. When unable to keep up my cheery image, I’d let connections lapse. In London, I’d hung out with South African acquaintances until they left to teach English in Taiwan. Then I’d piggybacked Graham’s social circle. Fearing intrusiveness, with women especially, I ran at the slightest hint of confrontation. In sexual relationships, I felt safer.