So I went. After all, I was hardly in a position to sneer. I was as lonely as Pam; this was to be my life, from now on. Those three possible men had faded back into the general population as if they’d never existed. Azra and Greg had gone. After their initial sympathy, most of my friends had stopped phoning. I didn’t blame them; I was hardly the best company. Nowadays, it seemed, Pam was as good as I was going to get. She wasn’t even one of those single women who had slipped through the net; Greg and I had hardly known her, and had never set foot in her house. We’d laughed at her, you see—poor fat Pritt-Stick Pam in her beige cardigan and beige shoes, still a virgin, still living with her mother and all those cats, nothing to do in her life except sit behind her net curtains, poised for an Ocado van to park in the disabled bay.

How smug we were! Looking back, I can see that we were the very people I’ve been condemning. Smug and patronising. Smug and married. Ha! Silly me.

Pam’s house was immaculate. In the hallway she asked me to remove my shoes. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Since Mum died I’ve been trying to put the place to rights, bless her. But it’s lonely, isn’t it, rattling about on your own? I expect you miss the companionship.’

I was going to reply about lodgers, how I’d thought about getting one, but she was busy uncorking a bottle of wine.

‘So what were the kennels like?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Their kennels. Andy and Prisha’s. You must have gone there when you chose your puppy.’

‘Oh, I didn’t go there.’

‘What?’

‘It came by post.’

‘The puppy?’

‘What?’

‘In a parcel?’

‘No—sorry. I mean it was delivered.’ I paused. ‘You know, in a delivery van.’

She poured out the wine. ‘That makes sense. I’d heard they were a scandal, those kennels. Faeces everywhere. Have a Pringle.’ She passed me a bowl. ‘I reported them to the RSPCA—anonymously, of course—but nothing happened. I think they must have been paid off.’

‘Who?’

‘The RSPCA.’

‘Surely you can’t pay them off.’

‘You’d be surprised. Same thing with the council. I reported number five for contaminating their recycling, and not a dicky bird. Same thing happened with the noise from number twelve. I tested it on my meter—’

‘You’ve got a meter?’

‘—and sent that off but answer came there none. I’m thinking of taking them to court.’

‘The council?’

‘But then half of them have got their snouts in the trough.’ She munched a Pringle. ‘And did you know that Elaine next door is a sex worker?’

‘What?’

‘Men coming and going at all hours.’