‘He’ll be fine. He won’t have to feel guilty leaving me at home to accept dinner invitations from his ex-girlfriends.’

‘Does he have that many?’

‘I’m exaggerating. One or two before me.’

‘Why do you think Sophie dislikes you?’ I asked. ‘Are you sure she does dislike you?’

‘Perhaps she hoped her mum and him might get back together.’

A woman a few metres in front of us leaned back from a kneeling position and stretched herself into a perfect O.

Emily and I blinked at each other, and she spoke. ‘But then who ever needed a good reason to hate someone else?’

*

Andrew answered the door in his Sunday wear: jeans and casual shirt with just the top button undone, a pair of sandals. We squeezed each other’s hands as hard as we could and he gestured for me to walk up the stairs.

‘Are you drunk, Paul?’ he asked cheerfully.

‘What kind of question is that? Are you?’

‘You were drunk last time you arrived here, weren’t you?’

‘It’s two o’clock on Sunday afternoon.’

‘I never know with you. You might have been out since Thursday.’

‘I’ve been working in the shop for the last two days. I went to the cinema last night with my flatmate.’

‘How disappointing. You mustn’t stay sober this afternoon, Paul. I doubt I’ll manage it.’

‘Is Sophie here yet?’

‘No, she’s on her way. You hit it off, did you, at the launch?’

‘We had a nice time drinking in an ersatz confessional booth.’

‘Sounds sacrilegious.’

‘That’s what I said. And, oh! I read Sophie’s article about shoplifting. Did you see it?’

He gave me a long assessing look before he spoke. ‘I did, and that is a subject I have been advised by Emily not to bring up over lunch. I say advised, but what I mean is commanded.’

In their hallway I stood again at the intersection of two book-lined corridors. Emily stood barefooted at the end of one, wearing an apron; she beckoned me towards her. There was a smell of bread baking. It was a dreamy vision, like one might have before being jolted back into life with a defibrillator. The wooden floorboards looked like they had been recently polished, though that may just have been my heightened sensitivity to our different environments. The carpets in my place had frayed through in patches to show the lack of underlay. I sometimes found myself wandering through streets of Edwardian terraces in Dalston, looking into living-room windows with lustful thoughts about alphabetising my books there.

‘I brought a bottle,’ I said.

‘Thanks very much.’ Without looking at the label, he put it on the floor next to an umbrella stand. Then he ushered me into the kitchen.

*