S Do I have the courage to finish it? I don’t know. In any case I’m going to fill her in. I have to tell the truth and face the truth. To complete?

J Why isn’t he grovelling like last time? Damn! I’ve dripped nail polish on to my white disco trackies

S Jessie, we’ve not been on the same journey

J Here we go. Why does this always happen to me?

S Now hear me out. On the way to Istanbul I met a wonderful woman called Mrs Seacole, who was a nurse in the Crimean War. Once in Istanbul, or rather Constantinople, I hooked up with Pushkin and his Ethiopian great-grandad, who showed me around a harem. It was, well, it was like an out-of-body experience. This has been happening to me ever since we first met and, to be honest, I’ve loved every minute of it

J Stanley, that is the most pathetic excuse for cheating on a woman that was ever invented! Truth is, you went off with some young bimbo you met on one of your long expeditions to the toilet!

S I can see ghosts, Jessie. I’ve just been back in nineteenth-century Constantinople. It may sound crazy, but it’s the truth. Listen to me. Hear me out. Just this once?

J You’re trying to mess up my mind, you scheming little rat! You’re insane, Stanley Orville Bastard Williams. And you’ve not even apologized!

S She loses it and starts frothing as insults fly out at falsetto operatic pitch and, I must say, with little regard for correct syntax. Like Ibrahim with the boy Menelik, I can see her, but I can’t feel her any more. Maybe I am being a bastard. At least it makes me interesting

J Dear Sunny comes to the rescue

S That bitch shoots me her most disgusted of looks

Su What’s happening, Jessie? He’s being violent, isn’t he? I’ll call the police

S This is between Jessie and myself, so keep your nose out of it

Su No, it isn’t. It’s between the three of us now

S Oh, it’s like that, is it?

Su Yes, it is. Come on, Jessie, we’re going for a stiff drink. We need to get away from this prick-with-a-body-attached

J We storm off arm in arm. Me with green blotches of nail polish on my hands and clothes, and Sunny with one eye smudged with gothic-purple eye shadow that looks like a bruise

S Bull dykes

Güle, Güle, Ölüdeniz