‘The bike?’ she asked.

‘It was very hard to stay on the bike last night.’

‘You are the journalist, aren’t you?’

‘Um. I am here to do the interview.’

She weighed me up for a few seconds. ‘Aha,’ she said. ‘Well, we’re up here.’ Her Glaswegian accent was carefully enunciated, like a regional Radio 4 presenter’s; I imagined her planing the edges off it, like I had done with mine, sliver by sliver, to wedge between where we had been and where we now wanted admittance. In a dark blue skirt or dress, a grey jumper and black winter tights, Emily was wearing no shoes, and on the balls of her feet she led me to a set of stairs.

‘We’re right at the top,’ she said, turning back to scrutinise me again. Then she headed up and I followed her.

*

On the way up the stairs I tripped on a step and had to grab her arm so I didn’t fall over.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I said, righting myself.

‘It’s OK,’ she said, but she justifiably sounded wary. ‘Perhaps you need a cup of tea to go with your Coca-Cola?’

‘I just tripped. Yes, a cup of tea would be nice.’

I followed her through the door, which opened into a wide hallway of polished wood with long corridors at right angles to each other. On one side of each corridor fitted mahogany bookshelves stretched to the end.

‘There’s a camera attached to the front door,’ she said. ‘What was that I saw you pouring into your Coke? Rum?’

‘Oh, shit.’ I put the can down on the side. ‘Whisky, actually.’

‘Are you an alcoholic?’ She asked this in the tone she might have used to ask if I came from London. I followed her down the length of a corridor and into a kitchen, shiny, clean, light: a piece with the flat.

‘No. That was an emergency drink.’

‘That sounds like the sort of thing an alcoholic would say.’

‘A minor alcoholic, though. A major alcoholic would accuse you of being a witch and burst into tears before he asked you to pray with him.’

She pressed her lips together to suppress what could have been amusement or irritation. ‘Are you drunk now?’

‘Not at all. Sorry – I just had to defer a hangover for a couple more hours.’

‘Did you consider not getting drunk last night?’ she asked calmly, filling the kettle. ‘Considering this engagement of ours?’

‘It was our awards party, I had to go. They’re planning to cut my books page, you see. I’d planned to buttonhole the editor and convince him of the value of it before he replaces it with… I don’t know… a page of weird genitals that look like vegetables, or weird vegetables that look like genitals, I don’t know, I can’t think like he does.’