I took the photo and put it inside my jacket pocket. Then I opened the door, checked the corridor and left without anyone seeing me. Rather than go back the way I had come, I carried on up the corridor, reading about lecturers’ niche interests on the posters on their doors. One room, with a glass window, was labelled as the PhD study room. I looked through the window and saw two men and a woman working at computers. The woman was Andrew’s student, the one with whom he definitely wasn’t having an affair. I opened the door and everyone looked up.

‘Hi,’ I said to her. ‘Chloe, isn’t it?’

‘Er. Hi?’

‘I’m Paul. Andrew’s friend. We had dinner that time.’

‘Oh, yes. You left abruptly with Emily.’

‘Yes.’

She was looking at me warily, but there was curiosity mixed in with her distrust.

‘You haven’t seen him, have you? I’ve just tried his office but he’s not there.’

‘No. I haven’t seen him yet today.’ Her mouth was beginning to smile.

‘Yet. OK. Well, if you do see him, let him know I was looking for him, won’t you?’

‘Sure. Shall I tell him what you want with him?’

‘No. Unless you have time for a coffee? I could explain better then.’

She started by shaking her head. ‘Oh, no, no. Oh, I’m— OK,’ she said. ‘Sure. OK. Yes.’

‌

‌Twenty

‘When are you happiest?’ you ask.

‘I don’t know. A good day in the shop, talking to customers. Staying at home with a book. Flirting with someone at the bar. Heading out with a wallet full of twenties and a fully charged phone.’

‘You almost sounded wholesome for a second there.’

‘I’m still unconvinced that any of those activities are any more wholesome than the others.’

‘Really?’

‘What’s wrong with getting inebriated and going to bed with strangers? Surely it’s wonderful, a reason to be alive.’

‘There are consequences though, aren’t there?’

‘I know. But I’m not cut out to be wholesome.’

‘Everyone can be as wholesome as they want to be.’

‘You sound very American there.’

‘And you sound very British.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Glib, superior, dodging away from analysis, unwilling to focus on self-improvement.’

‘Happiest in the past.’

‘Unable to be happy in the future.’

‘You think?’

‘It looks that way. But you specifically – I think you might be able to be happy.’

‘Great! How do I do it?’

‘Change the way you live your life.’

‘Oh, right. Well. What a con. It’s like the last noble truth of Buddhism – one defeats sorrow by… following the twelvefold path of Enlightenment. You think you’ve finished and you’ve got a list of loads more to do.’

‘I didn’t know you’d studied Buddhism, Paul.’

‘That was when I stopped. Now you’re doing that straight face again you do when you’re secretly laughing at me. Stop it.’

*