We’re quiet for a while. I find myself automatically checking the riverbank every time we walk past a sandy part, even though I definitely couldn’t eat anything now, while walking with Ben, unless it were actually Ben that I ate. A fox crosses the road ahead of us, watching me as it does so. I have a very brief and sudden urge to chase after it—to essentially, I suppose, hunt it. I wonder what it would feel like; whether the fox is male or female; whether the fox is a mother; whether I’d experience giving birth.

“So what kind of art do you make?” I ask Ben. “I mean, if you want to share.”

“Yeah no, it’s fine—though, I’m not great at explaining it,” he says.

We’ve reached Vauxhall Bridge, which is fairly busy, and Ben steps forward and looks both ways, checking for cars for both of us. I notice that his hand is up slightly, just next to me. “Okay,” he says, and he kind of half takes my forearm in his hand. We cross the road and go onto the bridge.

“So, I’ve basically been making clocks for the last god knows how long,” Ben says, flippantly.

“Clocks?” I say. I remember the clock hands in his studio.

“Yeah. Not like normal ones, though,” he adds. We keep walking for a bit. A bus goes past.

“Are you going to elaborate or are you expecting me to ask questions?”

“Sorry, I’m not good at talking about it,” Ben says. He squirms. “So, my mum was diagnosed a couple of years ago . . .”

I feel a bit bad for pushing him. “It’s okay, you don’t actually have to tell me. Sorry I pried.”

“No, it’s okay. I would like to tell you. It’s just, I don’t know . . . ” he says.

We pass a drunk man, whose huge, wide, bloodshot eyes stare freely and with no qualms at my face. I move in a little closer to Ben, and follow the man’s gaze with a frown, but the man doesn’t look away; his eyes stay fixed on me, big and round, until I feel like if I keep looking, I might fall into them. Ben doesn’t seem to notice.

“So, basically,” Ben says. “Mum was getting all these times thrown at her by doctors. You probably know what it’s like. Six months left, a year left, a week left, oh, no—four months left—and so on.” I nod, though I feel bad that I lied to him the other day, that he thinks my mum is dead and so, thinks I can relate to what he is going through.