I look back at the crowd. ‘I know what you mean,’ I say. ‘They all look so . . . busy. And purposeful.’

‘Except him,’ the man says, nodding to a guy in the opposite corner, who has just been abandoned by the young woman he was talking to.

‘He’s a lost ant,’ I agree. ‘What do you reckon – is he our Norwegian hermit?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the man says, giving him an appraising look. ‘Not good-looking enough, I don’t think.’

‘Why, have you seen the author photo?’ I ask.

‘Yep. Handsome guy. Dashing, some might say.’

I narrow my eyes at him. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the author.’

He smiles, and the crinkles in the corners of his eyes lengthen into tiny crow’s feet. ‘Guilty.’

‘You’re very well dressed for a hermit,’ I say, a little accusingly. I feel misled. He doesn’t even have a Norwegian accent, damn it.

‘If you’d read this,’ he says, waving one of the samplers that was available on our way in, ‘then you’d know that before I chose to live alone in Nordmarka, I was an investment banker in Oslo. I last wore this suit on the day I resigned.’

‘Really? What made you do it?’

He opens the sampler and begins to read. ‘Tired of the corporate toil, Ken had a revelation after a weekend spent hiking with an old school friend who now made his living in woodwork. Ken had always loved to use his hands’ – and now the look he gives me is definitely flirtatious – ‘and when he went back to his old friend’s workshop, he felt suddenly at home. It was clear within moments that he was an extraordinarily skilled woodworker.’

‘If only we always had a pre-written biography for meeting new people,’ I say, raising an eyebrow. ‘Makes it so much easier to brag.’

‘Give me yours, then,’ he says, snapping the sampler closed with a smile.

‘My bio? Hmm. Let me see. Tiffy Moore escaped the smallness of her village upbringing for the great adventure that is London as soon as she could. There, she found the life she had always wanted: overpriced coffee, squalid accommodation, and an extraordinary lack of graduate jobs that didn’t involve spreadsheets.’

Ken laughs. ‘You’re good. Are you in PR too?’

‘Editorial,’ I tell him. ‘If I was in PR, I’d have to be out there with the ants.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re not,’ he says. ‘I prefer to be away from the crowd, but I don’t think I could have resisted saying hello to the beautiful woman in the Lewis Carroll dress.’

He gives me a look. A very intense look. My stomach flutters. But . . . I can do this. Why not?

‘Do you want to get some air?’ I find myself saying. He nods, and I grab my jacket off the chair and head for the door to the pub garden.

It’s a perfect summer evening. The air is still tinged with warmth even though the sun set hours ago; the pub has hung up strings of lightbulbs between the trees, and they cast a soft yellow glow across the garden. There are a few people out here, mainly smokers – they have that hunched look that smokers get, like the world is against them. Ken and I take a seat on a picnic bench.

‘So, when you say “hermit” . . .’ I begin.

‘Which I haven’t,’ Ken points out.

‘Right. But what exactly does that involve?’

‘Living alone, somewhere secluded. Very few people.’

‘Very few?’

‘The odd friend, the grocery delivery woman.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s not as quiet as people make it out to be.’

‘The grocery delivery woman, eh?’ I give him a look this time.

He laughs. ‘I’ll admit, that’s one downside of solitude.’

‘Oh, please. You don’t need to live alone in a treehouse to not have any sex.’

I press my lips together. I’m not entirely sure where that came from – possibly from the last gin and tonic – but Ken just smiles, a slow, really quite sexy smile, and then leans down to kiss me.

As I close my eyes and lean in, I feel giddy on possibility. There’s nothing to stop me going home with this man, and it’s a sunlight-through-the-clouds moment – like something’s lifted. I can do whatever I want now. I’m free.

And then, as the kiss deepens, with disorientating suddenness I remember something.

Justin. I’m crying. We’ve just had a fight and it was all my fault. Justin has gone cold, his back turned on me in our enormous white bed with all its trendy brushed cotton and endless pillows.

I am deeply miserable. More miserable than I have remembered being before, and yet it doesn’t feel at all unfamiliar. Justin turns towards me, and suddenly, giddily, his hands are on me and we’re kissing. I’m muddled, lost. I’m so grateful he’s not angry with me any more. He knows just where to touch me. The misery hasn’t gone, it’s still there, but he wants me now, and the relief makes everything else seem small.

Back here, in the garden in Shoreditch, Ken pulls back from the kiss. He’s smiling. I don’t think he can even tell that my skin has gone clammy and my heart is racing for all the wrong reasons.

Fuck. Fuck. What the hell was that?

August

24

   Leon

Richie: How are you feeling, man?

How am I feeling? Untethered. Like something’s got dislodged somewhere in my chest and my body doesn’t function quite right any more. Like I’m alone.

Me: Sad.

Richie: You’ve not been in love with Kay for months, I’m telling you. I’m so glad you’re out of that relationship, man – it was about habit, not about love.

Wonder why the fact that Richie’s right doesn’t lessen the pain in any meaningful way. Miss Kay almost constantly. Like a nagging ache. It worsens every time I pick up the phone to call her, and then have nobody to call.

Me: Anyway. Any news from Tiffy’s lawyer friend?

Richie: Not yet. I can’t stop thinking about it. You know every single thing in her letter just made me go, ‘Oh, yeah, shit, why didn’t we think of that?’

Me: Same.

Richie: You did pass on my reply? You made sure she got it?

Me: Tiffy gave it to her.

Richie: You’re sure?

Me: I’m sure.

Richie: OK. All right. Sorry. I’m just . . .