Around five o’clock the one of them working at home started making dinner. They worked until the other one got home, but they could work and make dinner at the same time. They set something going and ducked into the kitchen to cut things up and put rice on. The interface binged every time a new message came in and they could hear it over the cutting and the boiling.

Three nights a week they went to a meeting – there were a couple in walking distance. And the other four nights they stayed at home and watched TV shows they’d stolen from the internet or got from the video store down the road. There were always laptops around the house in various states of repair, and they watched TV on these. They could have watched separately, but generally – like, they couldn’t remember the last time it wasn’t like this – they wanted to watch the same thing, and would. Sometimes sitting up in bed eating dinner, sometimes on the couch. Their flat was small and damp and sometimes they only wanted to heat one room. The door between the kitchen and the bedroom meant the heat from cooking would warm both rooms. Dinner was always good. They went to the library on weekends to borrow cookbooks so they could try new recipes out. They had a library card between them and it was one of the best things they had.

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Duncan sent an email inviting everyone to a party for Guy Fawkes. They were both invited. Peggy and Greta only had one work email, but he made it clear they were both invited. ‘Both come,’ he wrote. The party would be at the call centre. There was a barbecue they set up in the car park sometimes and Duncan shouted some beers and people would bring more. Greta and Peggy would bring salads and bread, and sometimes vegetarian sausages but that was always tricky. ‘If you don’t want to eat meat,’ Niall would say, ‘why eat vegetarian sausages?’ So they didn’t bring sausages often. Just salads and bread.