I had been getting worse. Writing the lists had become frustrating, because her shopping never changed. And I couldn’t think of any other way to get close to her. Reaching out in a conventional way was out of the question. It was too dangerous. I had been so tense for so long without being able to find a release. I was already way too involved. I worried I wouldn’t be able to control myself if I stopped the girl in the street. The thought of just touching her arm to draw her attention made my heart throb painfully in my chest. I wanted to run out as she passed, grab her face in my hands and plant a kiss on her little plum of a mouth. Bite down on it. This feeling was alarming, yet it was the best part of my day. When she wasn’t around I was so depressed that I could barely function. Often, while on the phone, I let the line go slack and only realized when I heard the continuous buzzing tone that the person on the other end had hung up on me. It was only a matter of time before the big boss called me in for a disciplinary meeting.

Mrs Hewlett was the agency manager. She was always well dressed, with a flair for polka-dot dresses. She had a mahogany-coloured bob and a flamboyant manicure that changed colour every week. She wasn’t averse to giving employees, girls and boys alike, a friendly ruffle on the head when business was good. She and the decent pay were the main reasons I’d stayed in the job.

Mrs Hewlett spent most of her day buried in the back office. It was an uncanny sort of through-the-looking-glass realm, where everything about the agency was inverted: order into mess, friendly composure into complicit friendliness, frosted glass into moth-eaten upholstery scattered with biscuit crumbs. The first time I’d been in there, for my interview, I’d discovered a furry boiled sweet in the lining of the armchair.

I’d barely been in the office since, so imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, I received a call on the internal phone and had to weasel my way between the towers of Colourful Cruises and Wah-Wah-Waikiki, to sit down in front of Mrs Hewlett’s desk. She suggested she’d called me in because she was concerned. I immediately fell for it, which goes to show, I suppose, how effective her strategy was. She asked me if I’d been OK lately.