‘Hiii,’ she said. She had a metal clipboard, like Polly’s, and was holding it in pose #3, ‘Small child waiting to give thank-you card to visiting dignitary’. ‘I’m Lily. Hiii.’

We did hellos.

‘You’re writing about the event?’ Lily asked.

‘I am,’ I said.

Lily looked troubled. ‘The next full briefing’s not until five, for the evenings,’ she said.

‘We don’t need the full briefing,’ Pierce said. ‘Just give us an abridged version. The basic facts.’

‘What kind of story are you writing?’

‘Factual,’ Pierce said brightly.

‘I should hope so!’ she said, with a laughing smile. ‘What did you say your magazine was called?’

I told her.

‘I know you!’ Lily said. ‘This isn’t your usual kind of story, is it? You’re more … modern urban lifestyle?’

‘Jack’s taking it in a new direction,’ Pierce said. ‘Grittier. More real.’

‘Eddie still the editor there?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘They’ll carry him out in a box.’

‘I love Eddie,’ Lily said. ‘Such a great guy.’

‘Yeah, he’s a great boss.’

‘I don’t know Eddie,’ Pierce said through a ghastly, insincere grin, ‘but I hear he’s great.’

Lily strafed us with another smile. Mention of Eddie had melted her reserve. ‘Come through,’ she said, letting us pass.

Half of the second hut was occupied by a miniature lecture theatre, with a dozen folding chairs facing a white projection screen and a podium. Behind the screen was a small office area, comprising two desks facing each other, a photocopier, a fancy-looking printer and a large wall-mounted TV. Lily’s clone sat at one desk, and the other was presumably Lily’s. Roles attract types. I thought of the two Rays at work – basically identical sub-editors, the same individual, apart from the fact that one was a white man and the other an Asian woman – and smiled. I thought of them fact-checking my Pierce profile and the smile faded. For that to happen, the draft would have to exist, and it was still very hard to imagine the act of writing it.

‘I remember Eddie from a trip to Miami Art Basel, must have been a couple of years ago,’ Lily said. ‘When I worked for Peloton Public Relations. Such a laugh. Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink? Water, tea, coffee?’

Yes, a drink, but none of those. The Need had been building up since we had left the train, and now I felt a horrible rush of it, a geyser erupting deep within. I was far from the pub, far from the opportunity to slip away, far from home, and the fridge at home was empty. What was here, where I was, didn’t even feel real any more, only a ghastly succession of obstacles placed between my shade and being able to see and feel without pain.