‘Are you sure what you’re doing is healthy?’ she asked.

‘Joaquin Phoenix did it for seven months.’

‘Is he really who you want to model yourself on?’

Wilkes shrugged and reached for his smoothie but, in his desperate attempts to get a firm grip on the glass, it slipped from between his sweaty fingers and Elizabeth had to reach out to grab it before it spilled mushed banana and goat’s piss all over them both.

‘Probably best just to use the straw,’ she suggested, and he did so, bobbing his head up and down as he filled his body with bacteria derived from animal waste.

‘God, that’s absolutely disgusting,’ he said happily. ‘What’s up with you anyway? You look upset about something.’

‘I am. I have some really bad news.’

‘Oh?’

‘You need to remain calm when I tell you. We can fix this; I know we can.’

‘Okay, you’re scaring me now,’ he said, taking another mouthful of his drink and gagging visibly. ‘What is it? Just tell me.’

She reached for her phone and, to his surprise, took a quick selfie of the two of them, before opening her Instagram feed and posting the picture with the following caption:

@ElizCleverley Spending time with @Wilkes4Love

‘Look!’ she said, turning the screen around for him to see.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’

‘Your Instagram account has disappeared. There’s no link coming up to your name. And the same thing is happening on Twitter. I tried to tweet earlier that I was meeting you and there was no sign of your feed.’

Wilkes laughed and shook his head. ‘Is that all?’ he asked, sounding relieved. ‘Honestly, I thought it was something serious.’

‘This is serious,’ she insisted, surprised by his nonchalance. ‘It’s about as serious as things can get. Has someone hacked you, do you think? Was it the Russians?’

‘No,’ he replied with a self-satisfied smile, his favourite type. ‘The thing is, I deleted all my social media accounts last night.’

Elizabeth did her best to remain steady as these simple and yet utterly inexplicable words filtered through the complex ecosystem of her mind, but soon reared back in her seat as if she’d been shot.

‘You did what?’ she shouted, the words emerging in a tone that neither she nor Wilkes had ever heard before, but that reminded I Don’t Believe in Names (they/their), who was passing by at that moment, of the little girl in The Exorcist, when the devil’s got a hold of her and expresses its strongly held belief that Father Merrin’s mother is most likely engaging in fellatio with strangers while drifting unaccompanied through the underworld.

‘I deleted them,’ he repeated. ‘Last night. Before I went to bed. Actually, I’m not sleeping in a bed at the moment. I’m sleeping on the floor. To get in touch with the woodwork. Apparently, if you sleep with your ear to wood, you can hear the screams of the trees as the chainsaws ripped through them.’