‘I had no intention of insulting Mavis or hurting your maternal feelings. I—’

‘That’s all right, then. I just thought—’

‘It was nice of course to see her in her overall, not totally concealed by that enormous overcoat,’ Claud carried on, realising as he spoke that he carried on too far. He shifted his weight onto his right foot as though about to walk through Ann Kennedy.

‘It’s a very good coat, it’s the fashion to wear very large coats.’

‘I know, I read about it somewhere.’

‘A girl like Mavis, an actress, has to be à la mode—’

‘Ann.’ If only she would let him get by, get to the stairs, get to work. ‘Ann.’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t get carried away.’

‘I do get carried away. I lie awake nights expecting to hear that she’s been raped on her way to rehearsal. London is dangerous.’

‘More likely on the way back, and she could equally well get herself raped here.’ The conversation was bolting along a fresh avenue. ‘I myself was tempted more than once.’ (Beware of verbal diarrhoea.)

‘Am I harbouring a rapist?’

‘Only joking, Mrs Kennedy, Ann.’

‘So I should hope. Now, what about your breakfast? Shall I or shall I not cook it?’

A compromise was reached: she would provide breakfast on Sundays when the wine bar was closed and on market days, since it was only sensible to brave the elements on a full stomach. Claud was to pay for these meals, he discovered later, by listening to dissertations on Mavis pram-bound, Mavis as a toddler, at primary school, at comprehensive and at drama school. As he ate his bacon and egg, grilled mushrooms with kidney and tomato, he learned to say, ‘Oh, really’, ‘That was nice’, ‘She wasn’t stupid, was she’, and other such platitudes, while his mind plotted his next chapter, the few sheets of typescript which would increase the pile on his desk.

Some thousands of words later, reading through his work, Claud recognised a minor character taking on the hue of Mrs Kennedy and that the character who had imposed herself as Amy had chameleonlike transformed into an etherealised person with Mavis’ face and Laura’s body. The characteristics which had been loathsome in Amy were in this paper version funny, sexy and beguiling; he was creating someone he dreamed of at night, confusing her with Laura wearing her jersey and nothing else. He would wake with a shock and an erection and sniff the cold air of the loft for the elusive scent of pepper.