‘No, I was happy to come, I didn’t mean that. I just want you to find your path.’

‘So you say.’

‘I’m not the one stopping you, Dan. You could do your own work if you wanted to.’

‘You think I don’t want to?’

‘I think you don’t believe in yourself. I think that stops you.’

‘Oh, right, it’s not because I’m already working sixty hours a week to pay the fucking mortgage?’

‘Artists do have day jobs. People find a way.’

‘Do they?’

‘Most people don’t make a living out of their art.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘They work weekends,’ she said. ‘They do.’

‘Yeah? How many? How many of them don’t have any financial help? These “people”, Bea, are the entitled middle class – how many of these “people finding a way” are like me? How many are black? How many are working five, six days a week, in a fucking estate agent’s, and still – Jesus, what are you like? You’re a – how high are your standards? What do you expect from me?’

‘I don’t have the answers, Dan. All I know is that whatever we do, or whatever money we make, it must be just ours. It’s good, how we live. It’s good. It’s ours and it’s clean. I need that, don’t you?’

‘That’s right, hit me with that.’

‘With what?’ she said.

‘Morality. Knockout punch.’

‘It’s not a fight.’

‘Oh yeah? You got me. I’m down.’

‘I don’t want to bring you down.’

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘You’re totally uncompromising.’

She was surprised. It was almost funny to him how surprised she was. ‘Am I?’

‘I can’t speak to you,’ he said.

‘You can’t speak to me?’

‘No.’

She shook her head and rubbed her face. ‘You got me out of bed at three in the morning,’ she said. ‘You’d better try.’

‘Then stop staring at me. Come on. You mess up my head. I can’t think with you looking at me like that.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ He shook his head.

‘I don’t want to be uncompromising,’ she said. She thought for a moment. ‘What about if I cover my face?’

‘What?’ said Dan.

‘Like this.’ She put her hands over her eyes. ‘Better?’

He could only see her nose and mouth.

His anger went away. He had dragged her out of bed to fight with her and she was still trying to help him. And she looked so vulnerable, waiting, blind and hopeful, for him to say his piece. He looked at her mouth, beneath her hands.

‘That’s kind of hot,’ he said.

‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘Maybe you can say it now, how you feel.’

She was right – wasn’t she always? – it was easier not to see her eyes. He took a breath and said it. ‘When your parents die, you’ll inherit their money.’