‘I’m not that way inclined,’ I said primly.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘How do you know if you’ve never tried it?’

From anyone else this would have been an invitation, but I knew Azra too well for that.

‘Look, you can be all fluid and non-binary and whatever, but I want a man,’ I said. ‘I want to find the loo seat up. Call me old-fashioned.’

She laughed, and slumped back on the sofa. ‘All right, you win.’ She pulled a thread of tobacco from her teeth.

She sat there, smoking. I sat next to her, lining up her remote controls. Back home I had an even larger selection. Several of them were a mystery to me and now I would never find out what they were for. Did we once own a Panasonic?

‘If you want a bloke you’ll have your work cut out,’ she said. ‘If they were going to leave their wives they’d have done it by now—they’d have done it ten years ago, for a younger model. It’s a bit late in the game, at our age. They’re starting to get lots of ailments and need to hunker down with the woman they’ve got, because who else’ll nurse them? And they’ve come to adore their grandchildren because they give them hope when the world’s so shit, and they can give them back to their parents when they’re being a pain.’ She shrugged. ‘So you’ll have to wait till their wives die and then move fast because a whole lot of women will be crawling—no, galloping—out of the woodwork with their casseroles and condolences—’

‘—and their gardening skills, because he’ll have let it go to rack and ruin—’

‘—being too busy nursing his wife,’ said Azra.

‘And they’ll listen to him banging on about how marvellous his wife was,’ I said, ‘and agree with him even if they didn’t like her—they’re not stupid—’

‘—and they’ll be charmingly helpless: Could you possibly look at my car, it’s making a funny noise—’

‘—but not too needy, because that’s a turn-off,’ I said.

‘And they know he’ll be attracted to somebody younger so they pull out all the stops, conversation-wise, so he’ll get interested despite himself. You have to work at it when you’re old—’

‘—and they’ll make him laugh—’

‘—something he hasn’t done for years because his wife was dying and he’d been feeding her mashed potato and holding back her hair when she’s been vomiting from the chemo—’

‘—if she’s got any hair,’ I said.

‘—because he’s lived with death for so long, with all its smells and sadness, that he wants somebody bursting with health, so for God’s sake keep quiet about your ailments. He’s had enough of all that—’

‘—and these young women, despite their tight little pussies, don’t understand this, and they don’t know who Alma Cogan is, and when he’s not shagging them it’ll make him feel so bloody lonely.’

We collapsed against each other, exhausted.

‘Or you could go on the internet,’ said Azra. ‘But it’s full of wonder­ful, intelligent women and the men are all crap—’