I’d like to be able to but. I loved her. I do love her. I actually can’t right now deal with the idea that she’s gone, that I might not ever wake up with her again, or go on holiday, because I think, sorry if this is a bit, but I think she’s my soulmate. Stupid things like I love watching her eat, the way she eats is so… and she’s funny and beautiful and. Brave and – like, we were on the Tube once, it was really crushed and there was this man, he wasn’t like a tramp, he was in a suit, he had a briefcase, and she realised this man had taken his, you know – his… penis, out, through his flies, and he was sort of, rubbing it on her but the Tube was so packed you know, so people didn’t notice, but when she saw it, she started shouting really loud, ‘Look at his chipolata!’, till everyone was looking at them – and you’d think that would be really embarrassing, wouldn’t you? But I just loved that, she’s just, fearless and what happened is the whole Tube, together, starting chanting at him, we’re all chanting together at this man, ‘Chipolata! Chipolata!’ and I thought: I actually feel like part of something, you know? For the first time in my life I feel like I’m part of something, like we, people, together, can change things. People can stand up and stop shit things happening. Because that’s what it was like when I was with her, I felt… connected to the world, and all the things the world could be if we were just, better versions of ourselves, so it’s like that better world was sort of a shared space that existed in both our heads, so there was like a world, that we lived in together, that we’d helped to make and it was just for us, it was our secret. We had a secret and we lived in it together and –

– and that’s it, really.

I just really –

– love her.

,

MIRANDA. Do you know what the irony of that story is, Sam?

SAM. Yes.

MIRANDA. No you don’t. The irony of that story is that one day your ex-girlfriend will no longer be twenty-two and slim and smooth. There will come a day when builders don’t whistle. When schoolboys at bus stops no longer whisper as she passes. When men on Tube trains no longer want to rub their genitalia on her.

And when that day comes, do you know how she’ll feel?

SAM. She’s not twenty-two. She’s thirty.

MIRANDA. She’ll feel like a fucking ghost.

A pause. MIRANDA takes a sip of water.

Thank you so much for coming in. We’ll be in touch.

,

SAM. That’s, is that it? Are we –

MIRANDA. That’s it, lovely. Shazia will show you out.