‘To go back to the subject of ministry for a second, I had a funny experience that I’ll share with you, even though it’s a bit embarrassing,’ said the woman. ‘Sometimes, in the silence and the stillness, you start to get what seem like little messages. Some are for you to share with the meeting, others are for you alone. Over time, you learn to distinguish one kind from the other. Sometimes you get a message that seems to be teasing you.’

The tittering that followed this remark had a knowingness about it; evidently there were people in the room who knew all about receiving teasing messages from—what had the sweaty bloke called it? The Immense Something Other. Wankers, thought Simon before he could help it. He resolved to be more accepting and tolerant, the minute he’d got the hell away from Friends House.

‘One day when I went to meeting, I was feeling a bit hot and bothered. I’d had a silly row with my boyfriend that morning,’ Olive Oyl continued. ‘I’d caught him rinsing some cutlery and putting it back in the drawer, still wet. When he told me there was no point drying it, that it would dry on its own in the drawer, I went ballistic. Anyway, at meeting later that morning, I started to hear this voice in my head. It kept saying, “Cutlery is not eternal.” ’ She laughed, and her audience laughed with her. ‘I knew that message wasn’t to be shared—it was a private joke, just for me. And I was so grateful for that. It’s no accident that gratefulness and “great fullness” sound the same.’

The radiant expression on her face made Simon want to gag, as did her contrived avoidance of the word ‘gratitude’. He’d have liked to tell her what he thought she was greatly full of. Applause broke out. Simon had seen and heard enough. He was about to stand back when he saw Aidan Seed turn in his chair. He wasn’t clapping with the rest of them. He was the only person Simon could see who wasn’t.

Seed looked sickened. Even from a distance, in profile, through a crack between a door and its frame, his disgust was unmistakeable. ‘You’re not one of them,’ Simon muttered under his breath. ‘You’re never going to be one of them. So what are you doing here?’ He wasn’t expecting an answer, neither from Seed, who couldn’t hear him, nor from a supreme being eager to communicate with him confidentially, so he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get one.

He went outside, hailed the first free cab he saw and told the driver to take him back to Muswell Hill. To Ruskington Road.

Charlie watched as the door to Seed Art Services opened with a slow creak. A few seconds later, Ruth Bussey burst out of the dark interior as if someone had shoved her from behind. She was wearing flip-flops on her feet. No socks or tights tonight either, Charlie noticed, and still limping. Charlie wondered again why anyone who hadn’t sprained their ankle would pretend they had.