He gestures to a door. He waits for me to go through it first, and then he follows.

We walk for a while down a dark corridor. “Reception’s on the other side,” the man says from behind me. He doesn’t ask for my name, and so I don’t ask for his.

“So, are you an artist as well?” I ask, trying to make conversation. But when I turn around to look at him, he just shakes his head and then says, “You?”

“Yes,” I say. I feel a bit guilty saying this, though, since I haven’t actually made any work since I graduated. I haven’t really been doing much of anything since I graduated. I feel like, in the year after college that I spent at home with my mum, worrying about her, trying to keep her safe, I didn’t really live; I essentially took a break from my life to focus on my mum’s life. Currently, I’m hoping-to-be rather than being—I’m not yet an independent adult; I’m hoping to become one. I’m not yet an artist; I’m hoping to become one.

“Hm,” he says. He’s walking beside me now. It’s quite a narrow corridor and we only just fit. I wonder whether he’s expecting me to slow down so he can overtake me, or if he’s trying to get me to speed up. I look at him from the corner of my eye. He’s wearing a black shirt with a high collar that covers most of his neck, formal trousers, and an ornate waistcoat. I suppose he looks how any normal person might expect a vampire to look.

Once reception is in sight, the man turns around and walks back the way we came.

“See you around then, I guess,” I call after him, but he keeps walking and doesn’t respond.

The receptionist barely acknowledges me. She shouts out to a woman with blond hair, wearing bright-red lipstick and a green coat, “Another one for you,” and the woman replies, shaking her head, as if I’m not there, “What am I meant to do with all of them?” The receptionist shrugs.

I follow the woman back down the corridor, back out into the hall, back through the red curtain, back past the murals and the Walter Potters, and to the puppet theater near the entrance. She walks very fast, then abruptly stops and tells a thin man with a neatly trimmed beard what to do in a raised voice: “Coffee for Gideon. No milk! Now, quickly—go!” She looks stressed. She’s looking at her phone. Her thumbs are darting rapidly across the screen.

“Okay,” she says eventually. She looks at me. “Can you just man the ticket booth or something?”

“What?”

“No water under any circumstances!” she adds, looking at my bag. “What’s in there?”

“Oh, um—”

“Hurry up!”