Because last week gave me a taste of what it might feel like to have the job I wanted. And it’s hard to just let that go. But here I am, back to writing the ‘accessible’ pieces on art and cinema that give people like Stan intellectual superiority complexes.

But then, at least I still have a job. I might not be so lucky if Hyacinth knew what really happened on that roof with Noah; if she knew how I got this drive, that I’d gone to Sabine’s mother’s house searching for a story without running it past her first. Of course, if that story had worked out the way I planned, going there would have shown ‘initiative’. But it didn’t.

So now all I can do is watch yet another boring, drawn-out street scene and pray.

Raw is an understatement. It’s as though Sabine turned on her iPhone camera and then wandered around Paris, hoping something would happen by serendipity. Most of the videos are filmed either around Le Voltage, where she used to work, or Montmartre, presumably because that’s where she’d sit for Noah’s paintings. The one I’m watching at the moment is at least familiar, it’s the clip from the bridge I saw on her Vimeo page, the one that video of the couple fighting was cut from. I’ve passed the part where they run through their sequence: fight, stare each other down, embrace. I’ve passed the part where it would usually fade to black and the words Love Actually would flash up in white on the screen. And now I’m watching the next bit, the part after that, the part where the arguing couple moves out of frame and the camera keeps rolling. It’s as though Sabine didn’t understand the weight of what she’d captured until she watched it back. There are two other couples on either side of the frame now. To the left is a girl with long, shiny dark hair so straight it looks artificial, who poses and reposes as her boyfriend takes her picture on his phone. She checks it, issues instructions and he takes another; just your garden-variety Instagram husband at work. And on the other side, a couple stands hand in hand, looking out at the water. She’s small and wearing a sundress and the guy takes off his jacket and puts it around her shoulders like maybe she was cold. There’s something painted on the back. I’m peering in at it thinking, What is that, a tiger?

Then, with no warning, no fucking footsteps, nothing, I hear, ‘Whatcha doin’, princess?’

My shoulders hunch and my body recoils as I swivel in my chair.

‘Hi, Stan,’ I say, minimising the viewing window as some pretty strong lower-octane thoughts bounce around my skull. Mainly variations on: Oh fuck off.