‘He might be.’

Lucy took out an ornate cigarette case from her tiny handbag.

‘You can’t smoke in here.’

Lucy flipped open the case and turned it to face Natasha. It contained three straight rows of cotton wool. ‘I put this stuff in my ears,’ Lucy explained, ‘when I don’t want to listen to people.’

Natasha rummaged for her own cigarette case. She opened it. ‘So do I,’ she whispered.

The two girls smiled and filled their ears. When Professor Carr returned, sat down and began gesticulating and leaning his body against theirs, they couldn’t hear him. Lucy took Natasha’s hand as his mouth moved in slow motion but no words came out. He let out another high-pitched giggle. Soon, his face became blurrier as the restaurant lights dimmed and flickered until, finally, he disappeared, and only the two girls remained in the booth.

LUCY

Lucy had no idea where she came from. She remembered getting the bus to college and how, as they moved from the countryside to the city, the music on the radio became gentler, more refined. The heat on the bus was oppressive and the material of the seats scratched at the back of her knees. When she disembarked she swore to never get another bus for the rest of her life.

Every two weeks or so, her parents rang from the black hole she sprang from. Their voices were tinny and far away. She didn’t know where her money was funnelled from, and had no inclination to find out. The world, in all its bleak and unexplainable misery, was simply not happening. Whenever her new friends asked about growing up in the countryside, she said, ‘I had a lot of authentic experiences. Rivers. Trees.’

‘Oh,’ they murmured collectively but didn’t press her on it.

She was studying theatre and that involved rolling around a wooden floor in a leotard. She was a cat, a bridge, a carton of milk. She was the most malleable student and the instructors ran their hands up her spine. She memorised and recited passages with vigour. Cocteau, Artaud, Sartre. She recited these quotes as if they were filled with the utmost meaning, as if they were designed specifically for her. Her mind had little compartments and her education slid in easily. Her past was disappearing, although she still had dreams. The sky over the college was always a paralysing grey. Every day, in the dance studio, she rested her leg on the wooden bar and limbered up. The wooden bar shook slightly. She recited lines to calm herself. Every week, she shoplifted from the luxury department store.

The first time she walked into the luxury department store, she felt like she was entering a church. The light streamed through the windows; she got to her knees. She had no previous conception that a place like this existed. She had a desire to throw herself out one of the front glass windows because it would be a beautiful, glamorous death. She opened her bag wide and threw in brands. She collected them like quotes – something to show off to her friends. After she shoplifted items she made a careful note of each one in her notebook. She called this notebook, ‘Possessions.’ She wanted to shoplift from every major brand before she died.