On Mondays she bought a pint of milk (skimmed, I could tell by the red lid). She bought one on Wednesdays and Fridays too. Mondays, she also bought a dozen eggs, which would last for a week. Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she bought a large tub of fat-free yoghurt, supermarket own brand. And a small box of teabags, once a week. After a few weeks, greedy for more intimate details, I began looking for less frequent items. I was eager to spot something more specific, something that would help me access a deeper layer of her personality: shampoo, seasonal flowers, a frozen pizza as a reward after an exam, tampons. I knew from the shelves in Tesco, and from previous girlfriends, that there were different types for different flows. I was curious to know what hers was like: purple for light, yellow for normal, green for heavy. She never bought any, which was in a way reassuring, because it meant that she must buy them in bulk. To preserve her modesty, I supposed. It made sense to me, with what I knew of her. I liked that she must have been planning for life’s little inconveniences well in advance. She seemed to buy a lot of sugar: a 500g packet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tate & Lyle, granulated, the two-tone pack, white and light blue.

Once I had a sense of what made up her month-long plan of purchases, I began to draw connections between one item and another. At this point I was detailing her shopping on paper: it had proved too hard to connect the dots in my mind.

I guess I had some notion, even back then, only a few weeks in, that I was becoming a bit obsessed with this girl. But I couldn’t help it. I was too bored. It was too addictive. I wasn’t hurting anyone, was I?

The women around me, women I worked with, women I worked for, had started to look increasingly tired, the way of old cars, rather than people. They’d lost their sparkle. It’d been a long time since any female had piqued my interest even slightly. They all seemed so boring, so predictable. Stick a curious man in a room full of travel posters and he’s bound to be travelling in his mind at the very least.