'Now look what you've made me do!' he growled, adding: 'Toast, please, and coffee – and it's Randolph, not Obb.'

'Congratulations,' I told him, but he only grunted in reply, found the cavalry officer and carried on with his painting.

Lola bounced into the living room, saw Randolph and stopped for a moment to stare at her nails demurely, hoping he would turn to look at her. He didn't. So she stood closer and said:

'Good morning, Randolph.'

'’morning,' he grunted without looking up, 'how did you sleep?'

'Heavily.'

'Well, you would, 'wouldn't you?'

She missed the insult and carried on jabbering:

'Wouldn't yellow be prettier?'

Randolph stopped and stared at her.

'Blue is the colour of a Napoleonic cavalry officer, Lola. Yellow is the colour of custard – and bananas.'

She turned to me and pulled a face, mouthed 'Square' and then helped herself to coffee.

'Can we go shopping, then?' she asked me. 'If we are buying underwear we might as well get some make-up and some scent; we could try on clothes and generally do girl sort of things together – I could take you out to lunch and gossip a lot, we could have our hair done and then shop some more, talk about boyfriends and perhaps after that go to the gym.'

'It's not exactly my sort of thing,' I said slowly, trying to figure out what sort of book St Tabularasa's had thought Lola might be most suitable for. I couldn't remember the last time I had had a girl's day out – certainly not this decade. Most of my clothes came mail order when did I ever have time for shopping?

'Oh, go on!' said Lola. 'You could do with a day off. What were you doing yesterday?'

'Attending a course on bookjumping using the ISBN positioning system.'

'And the day before?'

'Practical lessons in using textual sieves as PageRunner capturing devices.'

'And before that?'

'Searching in vain for the minotaur.'

'Exactly why you need a break. We don't even have to leave the Well – the latest Grattan catalogue is still under construction. We can get in because I know someone who's got a part-time job justifying text. Please say yes. It means so much to me!'

I sighed.

'Well, all right – but after lunch. I've got to do my Mary Jones thing in Caversham Heights all morning.'

She jumped up and down and clapped her hands with joy. I had to smile at her childish exuberance.

'You might move up a size, too,' said Randolph.

She narrowed her eyes and turned to face him.

'And what do you mean by that?' she asked angrily.

'Exactly what I said.'

'That I'm fat?'

'You said it, not me,' replied Randolph, concentrating on his metal soldier.

She picked up a glass of water and poured it into his lap.

'What the hell did you do that for!' he spluttered, getting up and grabbing a tea towel.