‘Why is the front of the body more shameful than the back?’ Tanya says, suddenly. ‘I know it’s a weird question, but this morning I thought I saw someone in the opposite block of flats looking through to my bathroom window with a pair of binoculars, and the first thing I did was to show him my back. Why?’

The doorbell rings and all of us turn to look at it in dumb wonder. Have we progressed so much that food will appear just by thinking about it?

Rohini gets up to open the door and it is Vik. With him is a girl.

‘We were passing by,’ Vik says. ‘You guys want to come? Golti’s party, remember?’

They’re standing at the doorway and Rohini is saying something to him that I can’t hear. I march to the door. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Oh, hey,’ Vik says. The girl next to him is foreign, thin. She’s in torn black jeans and a black tank top. Arms like letter openers – tapered, flat. The face is unimpressive. I’ve seen manhole covers more beautiful.

‘Franny, this is Grace.’

‘Hi,’ she says, extending a sunburnt hand; her voice – car crunching over gravel. ‘I’m Francesca.’

‘So, no worries, we’ll just head,’ Vik says. The girl turns around and walks back towards the lift. ‘Just hang on,’ he says to her, ‘I’ll be with you in a second.’

He closes the front door gently behind him; Rohini disappears into the kitchen. ‘I wanted to tell you myself. It’s nothing serious, but I didn’t want you to hear.’

‘It’s fine,’ I say. I press the sides of my dress with both hands. ‘I mean, you can do whatever you want.’

‘Okay.’ He inhales loudly and takes hold of my wrist with his hand. That leaf-like hand. ‘Listen, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. You should probably go.’ I turn away from him, back to the bar room.

They blink at me, four cows. ‘All right, one of you can fucking say something,’ I say.

Praveen is the first to speak. ‘Miss G, it’s not even worth talking about. I mean, that kid is clueless, right? He doesn’t have the maturity you need. Like, I saw him a few weeks ago with this girl and I asked him, Where’s she from, what’s this about? and you know, he gives this sly smile and says how he met her in Hampi or whatever. So, okay, I go out with them one night, she’s doing the usual Italian hippie thing, finding herself or whatever – lady can do some drugs, I can tell you – but she’s messed up. That chick needs her chakras broken.’

‘She’s Italian, seriously?’