“Hey, come here,” he said. I snuggled up against his chest and he stroked my hair. “Maybe it would make more sense if I met her?”

“Mm. In the meantime, I could cook you her intriguing tagine.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Fine, I won’t, then.” I curled away.

“Don’t be like that.” He yanked me back.

“I wouldn’t mind getting one of those clay pots to cook it in,” I said. “You know the ones that look like a hat?”

It wasn’t the first time I’d spoken of a meal I intended to cook. On the food front, I was both a terrible chef and a dreadful procrastinator. The latter quality was more to Graham’s advantage than he knew. He said, “I could get you one for Christmas.”

“Please! Graham!” I made guttural vomiting noises. “Don’t ever get me cooking shit for Christmas!”

“I was joking, Meggie.”

“Sorry. It’s just, I hate Christmas.”

“I know.”

I refilled our mugs. “Sabine’s going clubbing on Christmas Eve. A warehouse rave at a secret location. You phone a number on the day to find out where it is. I overheard her telling someone else.”

Graham took a few contemplative gulps of his rum. Then he put our mugs on the bedside table. As he leaned close, his floppy cowlick fringe brushed my forehead. “Talking of Christmas, I’m not doing anything nearly as exciting as Sabine but . . . I wonder if, um, you maybe, um, fancy coming back to my sister’s place in Scotland with me, um, maybe, sometime, if you’re free?”

6

If I had chosen Graham, I reasoned, then I ought to be able to choose Sabine.

Having turned down her toxic-food protest, I needed to make the next move. Other non-cool people at work befriended her easily. I saw the post guy, who peppered every second sentence with “hey-ho,” chatting to her in the kitchen, just her and him there for ages, then her hugging him. Or the placid middle-aged bookkeeping woman who referred to Sabine as her daughter; Sabine didn’t mind, they lunched together regularly. One day, she even blew Sabine off. Sloping wearily to our desk, she apologized, saying she’d forgotten a client’s meeting.

“No problem,” said Sabine—and my moment had come.

“D’you fancy lunch with me?” I asked.

“OK.”

“Where were you planning to go?”

“Greggs bakery. Then a walk around the Exchange.”

I hated shopping malls. “Great! We can do that.”

She laughed. “No, let’s go to Valentines Park.”

“I’ve never been—”

“You’ve worked here how long?”

“I know.”

“Valentines is the best thing in Ilford,” she said.

Waiting downstairs for Sabine, I put a couple of coins in a call box. I rang Graham at work to tell him about the Valentines walk.

“Comme c’est romantique!” he said.

“You go to the park sometimes,” I said.

“Don’t call to tell you.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Hn.”