A few days previously, the end date named, one of the older teachers had taken to wearing a veil – a wispy, fluttery piece of fabric that obscured her hunted face – as a gesture of mourning. Soon, she had amassed followers, a group of impressionable teachers who moved in a slow pack wearing makeshift veils fashioned from household materials. ‘We just listen to the radio, eat sandwiches,’ Angela said. ‘Think regretfully about our lives.’

‘Great!’ he said. ‘I just want to inform you this is a date.’

‘Is it?’

‘It is. I have seen you around the supermarket and I always thought I would like to show that woman somewhere nicer than a supermarket – like a museum. We don’t have much time left but would you like to go to a museum?’

‘I like the supermarket,’ Angela said. She pictured the hideous fluorescent lighting, the disappointing stock, the scowling staff in their polyester fleeces. ‘I think some of the happiest moments of my life have taken place in that supermarket.’

‘You would look good walking around a museum, I think.’

She ignored the compliment. ‘So,’ she said, eyeing up the rotating desserts, ‘have you been doing anything?’

‘I prayed.’ He perked up at the memory of his brief interaction with God. ‘I also lit a candle in a church.’

‘Wow,’ Angela said, in genuine awe. ‘I stole a cat. I didn’t necessarily steal it. I just looked at it and it came with me. I don’t consider myself a sexually aggressive person but it’s possible I seduced that cat.’

The little girl at the next table over vomited chunks of chocolate cake across the tablecloth. She carefully wiped her mouth, as if in preparation for a second round.

‘I’m sorry,’ the mother announced to the waiters. ‘She’s just nervous, I’m sorry.’

The waiters nodded in unison but made no move to clean up.

‘That’s one of mine,’ Angela said. ‘She’s been doing that a lot lately.’

‘She’s in your class?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Say hello.’

‘I’d rather not,’ she said. ‘They don’t like me so much, the children.’

‘I imagine you are a good teacher, Angela.’

‘Oh, I do my best,’ Angela said. This was true, maybe once. She had kept a close eye. There were still accidents on her watch, of course. A scratched elbow, a stone that had to be wrenched free. The children would rest their bodies on her lap. They would rise up then, recovered and forgetful. At the end of the day, no matter what she did, they left with whoever came to collect them. Children could be as breezy and carefree as adults.

‘Today, I had to write “China: Wiped Out” on the board. Doubly underlined.’ She managed a weak half-smile.

‘How did that go?’

‘Lots of questions: “Why are we still here, teacher?” “How do you spell that, teacher?” That sort of thing. The afternoon dragged right on.’