A woman was walking down Rokeby Close with a dog. It was small and it waddled, as if its legs were too short for its body. He wondered if he was still supposed to be shouting, or whether they’d given up on that plan now that the man said he had contacted the locksmith. Either way, Jack felt bashful, and the woman was too far away. He swallowed, feeling a little guilty.

He thought of the beer garden at the Elephant, where he was supposed to be going later. There was no particular occasion – Johnny had just suggested it because, apparently, it had some good craft beers on tap. Jack went along with a lot of what Johnny suggested. He seemed to know how to do London better than Jack did. In fact, it had been Johnny who had suggested Jack join him in London in the first place. They’d been at university together, but Johnny had moved down straight afterwards, and he said it was amazing: so many pubs and people. And Johnny was getting really into climbing at this indoor climbing wall. And then he had forwarded him this email from their university – Jack got the emails too but he never bothered to open them – and Johnny had said, look, they’ve got a job with this start-up in London. The founder had gone to Manchester too. And Johnny had said, ‘Apply and come live down here, mate.’

Jack had applied, in the end – on a whim, really, never expecting it to go anywhere – and then he’d been asked for an interview and then he’d got the job. His mum had narrowed her eyes at first when she saw the contract and that his job title was ‘Human Bean’, but Jack said he was fairly certain that was just how the company did things, little jokes like that. And she’d been satisfied and said it was good for him, to get out and live on his own. She had called Maisie, who said Jack could stay with her for a bit until he got on his feet.