Graham tickled his fingers across the freckles on my shoulder. “Meggie . . .?”

“Normally I make friends with people who befriend me first,” I said. “It’s time to start choosing.”

Graham slipped on top of me. I liked the feeling of his long lean body pressing into mine. He gave a cheeky smile. “Like you chose me?”

“You chose me.”

“You were checking me out at the pool table. My mates were like, See that cute gingerhead with the brown, puppy-dog eyes—”

“Sorry, Mr. Brown-Haired Dude with brown, puppy-dog eyes yourself. You came on to me, remember?” I rolled us over, so that I was on top of him. “Would you, um, like to go to the cinema or, um, maybe something else, sometime, if you’re free?”

Graham thwacked my bum.

I grabbed the wine from his bedside table; a single drop fell into my mug.

“More in the cupboard,” he said.

I flung open his wardrobe door: the neat shelves of folded jeans, ironed T-shirts, pants, socks. “No wine!”

“Kitchen cupboard, Meggie!”

On my way to the kitchen, I stopped off in the bathroom. While I peed I thought: Sabine would pee with the door ajar. I wished I’d left the door ajar. Peeing could be sexy. What else would sexy Sabine do? But in the utilitarian ex–council flat kitchen with its linoleum floor, venetian blinds, and Graham’s sister’s wedding photo on the fridge, I lost her vibe.

Back in the bedroom, filling my mug from a bottle of rum (I hadn’t found wine), I tried to explain Sabine again. I described her clothes: a baby-blue shift dress with a sailor collar, a brown-and-yellow circle skirt, black velvet trousers and an oyster-pink jacket. I said how I’d once seen a Vivienne Westwood label sticking out of her shirt. When I asked her about it she’d laughed. She said it was a fake, that all her clothes were. She bought them on Petticoat Lane.

Graham yawned.

“You’re bored?” I said.

“We’ve been on the same subject for hours.”

“One last thing, then. She remembers everyone’s birthdays but when I asked about hers, it had been the previous day—and nobody’d noticed!”

“Incredible.”

“It’s in my diary so she’ll get something from me next year.”

“Very conscientious.”

“I’m not trying to be conscientious.”

Graham yawned again. “You fancy her.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Seriously, Meggie. If I went on about the bloke at work’s enviably squinty eyes and how his birthday was in my diary and there was a sweet jelly-bean game going on between us?”

“Women aren’t scared of being fascinated by other women.”

“Sure.” He swirled the rum around in his mug. “I just don’t get it, though. What about her is that fascinating?”

I sighed. “Haven’t I been telling you for hours?”

He rolled his eyes. “Feels like days . . .”

I sipped my rum, moist-eyed and snubbed.