‘Permission to abort the mission?’ Minnie asked hopefully.

‘Denied,’ said Greg.

Minnie and Greg had been dating for five months. They’d met at a march outside City Hall, protesting the lack of affordable housing in London. Greg was the journalist covering the story and Minnie was there supporting Mrs Melvin, a lady she had been delivering food to since the early days of her business. Minnie and her friend Leila had made a sign for the march that said, ‘HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT’, but they’d used too much paint on the first ‘H’ so it looked a bit like an ‘M’. On the march, Minnie, Leila and Mrs Melvin found themselves walking next to a group of people dressed as large cats wearing monocles and top hats. One wore a T-shirt that said, ‘SAY NO TO THE FAT CATS!’ Greg ran over to take a photo of Minnie’s sign with the fat cats in the foreground. He shook his head laughing as he snapped away.

‘Why are you laughing?’ Minnie shouted crossly.

‘Maybe the cats are so fat because of all the mousing?’ Greg said, pointing to her sign. Leila looked and laughed. Minnie rolled her eyes.

‘It doesn’t say mousing,’ she said, hand firmly on her hip.

‘It does look like it says mousing, Minnie,’ said Leila.

‘Minnie Mouse, this photo will make a great front page,’ said Greg with a sly smile.

‘You’d better not,’ said Minnie, trying not to laugh as she chased him down the street, playfully prodding him with her sign. Minnie liked men who could make her laugh. She was instantly drawn to Greg’s sarcastic manner and his angular features. He had a neatly trimmed brown beard and distinctive, dark-rimmed glasses. Once they started dating, Minnie discovered that it wasn’t just for work that Greg liked to make up headlines – he enjoyed captioning everything she did. When Minnie tripped on a step he would say, ‘Stunner trips on stairs – Stairs seek legal advice; chances are they’re going down!’ Or when she took the last banana in his fruit bowl, he’d pipe up in an American drawl, ‘Fruit bowl homicide still unsolved – Did victim go bananas? Cross the lime? Or was it simply a case of sour grapes?’ Puns were his thing. Greg wasn’t making any jokes this evening.

‘Look, you stay here,’ he said with a sigh, looking around the balcony, ‘I’ll go back through and try to find this private room.’

‘OK, well, if an asteroid lands in your absence. I can only say goodbye, I told you so, and Happy New Year,’ Minnie replied, trying to sound upbeat.