e had arranged to meet the following day in Starbucks at the end of my block. I couldn’t meet him on the day of the office incident, I would rather not have seen anybody or anything, apart from Mr Pan and my bed, that day, but word had reached my mother, via on-the-hour-every-hour news bulletins, and she was frantic with worry. Father was up the walls. Mum had sent a messenger into the court with word that her daughter’s office had been held at gunpoint and Father had demanded a recess in a controversial high-profile case. He had broken every speed limit for the first time in his life to make it home to Mum and they’d sat around the kitchen table together eating apple pie and drinking tea, crying and hugging and reminiscing on the little Lucy stories they loved to regale so much, bringing my soul to life as if I had been shot in the office that day.

Okay, I lied.

I’m not sure how Father felt about it – the underlying feeling was probably that I deserved it for landing such a lowly job with standard people – but I was in no mood to learn his thoughts on the matter. I’d refused to visit, insisting I was fine, but even I knew this time that I was lying and so Riley had landed on my doorstep unscheduled.

‘Your chariot awaits,’ he said as soon as I’d answered the door.

‘Riley, I’m fine,’ I said but it didn’t sound credible and I knew it.

‘You’re not fine,’ he said. ‘You look like crap.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Just get your things and come with me. We’re going to my place. Mum’s meeting us there.’

I groaned. ‘Please, I’ve had a rough day as it is.’

‘Don’t speak about her like that,’ he said, serious for a change, which made me feel bad. ‘She’s worried about you. It’s been on the news all day.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Wait here.’

I closed the door and tried to gather my things but I couldn’t think, my mind was numb, it wouldn’t work. In the end I gathered myself and grabbed my coat. When I stepped out into the corridor my neighbour whose name I’d forgotten was talking with Riley. He was leaning in towards her, oblivious to my presence, so I cleared my throat, a long loud, phlegmy sound that echoed in the corridor. That got his attention. He looked at me, annoyed by my interruption.

‘Hi, Lucy,’ she said.

‘How’s your mother?’

‘Not good,’ she said, deep frown lines appearing between her eyebrows.

‘Have you been in to see her?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Well, if you decide to, remember I’m here to … you know.’

She nodded her thanks.

‘Your neighbour seems nice,’ Riley said once we were in his car.

‘She’s not your type.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t have a type.’

‘Yes, you do. The blonde vacuous type.’

‘That’s not true,’ he said. ‘I go for brunettes too.’

We laughed.

‘Did she mention her baby to you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘Are you trying to put me off her? Because if you are, telling me that she has a baby won’t work. I once dated a woman with two kids.’

‘Ha. So you are interested in her.’

‘Maybe a little.’

I found that weird. We sat in silence and I started thinking about Steve pointing a gun at my face. I didn’t want to know what Riley was thinking about.

‘Where’s her mother?’

‘In hospital. I don’t know which one and I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But it’s serious.’

‘Why hasn’t she seen her?’

‘Because she says she won’t leave her baby behind.’

‘Have you offered to babysit?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s nice of you.’

‘I’m not all bad.’

‘I don’t think any part of you is bad,’ he said, looking at me. I wouldn’t meet his eye so he looked back at the road. ‘Why doesn’t she bring the baby to the hospital with her? I don’t understand.’

I shrugged.

‘You do know, come on, tell me.’

‘I don’t.’ I looked out the window.

‘How old is the baby?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on, Lucy.’

‘I honestly don’t know. She puts it in a buggy.’

He looked at me. ‘It.’

‘Little boys and girls look the same to me. Until they’re ten I haven’t a clue what sex they are.’

Riley laughed. ‘Does her mother not approve of her being a single mother? Is that what it is?’

‘Something like that,’ I said and concentrated on the world passing by and not on the gun I kept seeing in my face.

Riley lived two kilometres from the city centre in Ringsend, an inner suburb in Dublin, where he occupied a penthouse that overlooked Boland’s Mills on Grand Canal Dock.

‘Lucy,’ my mum said, with eyes big and worried, as soon as I walked in the door. I kept my arms behind my back as she squeezed me tight.

‘Don’t worry, Mum, I wasn’t even in the office,’ I said out of nowhere. ‘I had to run an errand and missed all the fun.’

‘Really?’ she asked, her face filling with relief.

Riley was staring at me, which was making me uncomfortable; he’d been acting very strangely the past few days, less like the brother I knew and loved and more like a person who knew I was lying.

‘Anyway, I brought you this.’ I removed my hands from behind my back and gave her a doormat that I’d swiped from outside the door of Riley’s neighbour. It said Hi, I’m Mat and looked good as new.

Mum laughed. ‘Oh Lucy, you’re so funny, thank you so much.’

‘Lucy,’ Riley said angrily.

‘Oh, don’t be silly, Riley, it was no trouble at all. It wasn’t expensive.’ I patted him on the back and moved into the rest of the apartment. ‘Is Ray here?’ Ray was Riley’s flatmate and was a doctor; they were never at home at the same time as they both worked opposite hours. Whenever he was home Mum flirted unashamedly with him, though she did ask me once before if Ray was Riley’s boyfriend. It was wishful thinking on her part for a trendy homosexual son who would never replace her with another woman.

‘He’s working,’ Riley explained.

‘Honestly, do you two never get to spend any quality time together?’ I asked, trying not to laugh, and Riley actually looked like he wanted to do a double-leg takedown and send me to the ground just like he did when we were younger. I quickly changed the subject, ‘What’s the smell?’

‘Pakistani food,’ mum said giddily. ‘We didn’t know what you wanted so we ordered half the menu.’ Mum got excited about being in her handsome bachelor son’s apartment where she got to do exotic things like eat Pakistani food, watch Top Gear and operate a remote-control fire that changed colour. It was a long way to a Pakistani restaurant from their house and Father wouldn’t be remotely interested in making the journey with her or watching anything other than CNN. We opened a bottle of wine and sat down at a glass table, by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the river. Everything was reflective and shiny, shimmering in the moonlight.

‘So,’ Mum said and I could tell from her tone that she meant a serious probing conversation was about to begin.

‘How are the wedding-vow renewal plans going?’ I asked first.

‘Oh …’ She forgot what she was going to ask me and perked up. ‘There’s so much I have to talk to you about. I’m trying to choose a venue.’ And I listened to her for the next twenty minutes talking about things that I never knew a person ever needed to consider when it came to four walls and a ceiling because the alternatives of no ceiling and/or three walls or less were apparently too overwhelmingly enticing.

‘How many people are going?’ I asked when I heard some of the venues she was thinking of.

‘So far there’s four hundred and twenty.’

‘What?’ I almost choked on my wine.

‘Oh, it’s mostly your father’s colleagues,’ she said. ‘Given his position it’s difficult to invite some and not others. People get very offended.’ And feeling as if she’d spoken out of turn, she corrected herself. ‘And rightly so.’

‘So don’t invite any of them,’ I said.

‘Oh, Lucy,’ she smiled at me, ‘I can’t do that.’

My phone started ringing, and Don Lockwood’s name flashed on the screen. Before I had a chance to control my facial muscles, I took on the characteristics of a giddy child.

Mum raised her eyebrows at Riley.

‘Excuse me, I’ll just take this outside.’

I stepped out onto the balcony. It was a wraparound so I moved away from their eyeline and earshot.

‘Hello?’

‘So, did you get fired today?’

‘Not quite. Not yet anyway. But it turned out the guy didn’t know who Tom was. Thanks for the tip all the same.’

He laughed lightly. ‘Same thing happened in Spain. Tom’s a mystery. Don’t worry. It could have been worse. You could have been in the office where that poor guy went ballistic.’

I paused. I immediately thought it was a trap but then my better judgement overrode it – how on earth could he have known, he didn’t even know my real name, couldn’t possibly have known that I even worked there.

‘Hello?’ he asked, worried. ‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ I said quietly.

‘Oh, good. I thought I’d said something wrong.’

‘No, you didn’t, it’s just that … well, that was my office.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes. Unfortunately.’

‘Jesus. Are you okay?’

‘Better than he is, anyway.’

‘Did you see the guy?’

‘Sausage,’ I said, staring across the river at Boland’s Mills.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I nicknamed him Sausage. He was the softest man in the building and he pointed a gun right at my head.’

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Are you okay, did he hurt you?’

‘I’m fine.’ But I wasn’t fine and he knew it but I couldn’t see him and I didn’t know him so it didn’t matter and I kept talking. ‘It was only a water pistol, you know, we found out afterwards when they’d … got him down on the ground. It was his son’s. He’d taken it that morning and told his wife he was going to get his job back. Jesus, a fucking water pistol made me question my whole life.’

‘Of course it would. I mean, you didn’t know, did you?’ he said gently. ‘And had he pulled the trigger you could have had very frizzy hair.’

I laughed, threw my head back and laughed.

‘Oh God. There was me hoping I’d get fired, and he gave up his life to get his job back.’

‘I wouldn’t say his life, it was hardly a deadly weapon, though I haven’t seen you with frizzy hair. I haven’t seen you at all. Have you got hair?’

I laughed. ‘Brown hair.’

‘Hmm, another piece of the puzzle.’

‘So tell me about your day, Don.’

‘I can’t beat yours, that’s for sure. Let me take you for a drink, I bet you could do with one,’ he said gently. ‘Then I can tell you all about my day face to face.’

I was quiet.

‘We’ll meet somewhere crowded, somewhere familiar, you choose where, bring ten friends with you if you want, ten men, big men with muscles. I’m not into big men by the way, or any men, I’d rather you not bring them at all but if I said that first you’d think I was planning to kidnap you. Which I’m not.’ He sighed. ‘Smooth, aren’t I?’

I smiled. ‘Thank you, but I can’t. My brother and my mother are holding me hostage.’

‘You’ve had a day of it. Another time then. This weekend? You’ll see there’s more to me than just a beautiful left ear.’

I started laughing. ‘Don, you sound like a really nice guy—’

‘Uh-oh.’

‘But frankly, I’m a mess.’

‘Of course you are, anyone would be after the day you’ve had.’

‘No, not just because of today, I mean generally, I’m a mess.’ I rubbed my face tiredly, realising contrary to my own popular opinion that I genuinely was a mess. ‘I spend more time telling a wrong number things I don’t even tell my family.’

He laughed lightly and it felt like his breath whistled down the phone to my ear. I shuddered. I felt as though he was standing right beside me.

‘That’s got to be a good sign, hasn’t it?’ He livened up. ‘Come on, if it turns out I’m a big fat ugly thing that you never want to see again then you can leave and I’ll never bother you again. Or if it turns out that you’re a big fat ugly thing, you’ll have nothing to worry about because I’ll never want to see you again. Or maybe you’re looking for a big fat ugly thing and in that case there’s no point in meeting me because I’m not.’

‘I can’t, Don, I’m sorry.’

‘I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me and I don’t even know your name.’

‘I told you, it’s Gertrude.’

‘Gertrude,’ he said, a little defeated. ‘Right, well, just remember you called me first.’

‘It was a wrong number,’ I laughed.

‘Okay then,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll leave you alone. I’m glad you’re okay.’

‘Thanks, Don. Goodbye.’

We ended the call and I leaned on the rail and looked out as the reflection from all the apartments’ lights shimmered in the black water. My phone beeped.

–A parting gift.

I scrolled down.

A pair of beautiful blue eyes stared back at me. I studied them until I almost imagined them blink.

When I went back in to Mum and Riley they were kind enough not to ask any questions about the phone call but while Riley went to get the car keys to drop me home, Mum took a moment and I sensed a special chat.

‘Lucy, I didn’t get the opportunity to talk with you after you left lunch last week.’

‘I know, I’m sorry I left so hastily,’ I said. ‘The food was lovely, I just remembered I had to meet somebody.’

She frowned. ‘Really? Because I felt that it was because I signed the documents for the appointment with your life.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ I interrupted. ‘It really wasn’t. I can’t remember what it was but it was, you know, important. I’d stupidly double-booked, you know how forgetful I am sometimes.’

‘Oh. I was sure you were angry with me.’ She studied me. ‘It’s okay if you tell me you were angry at me.’

What was she talking about? Silchesters didn’t reveal such things.

‘Of course not. You were just looking out for me.’

‘Yes,’ she said relieved. ‘I was. But I didn’t know what to do for a very long time. I didn’t sign the paperwork for weeks, I thought if there was something wrong you could maybe come to me and talk about it. Even though I know Edith is so good at helping you with things that maybe you don’t want to tell your mummy.’ She smiled shyly and cleared her throat.

Awkward, awkward, horrible moment. I think she was waiting for me to disagree but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t say anything. Where was my ability to lie when I needed it?

‘Eventually I talked it over with your father and I decided to sign it.’

‘He told you to sign it?’ I asked as gently as I could but felt the anger building inside me. What would he know about my life? He’d never asked me one question about myself, never shown the slightest bit of interest in—

‘No, actually,’ Mum broke in on my thoughts. ‘He said it was all a load of nonsense but that made me realise that I didn’t agree with him. I don’t think it’s all a load of nonsense. I think, what harm could it do? You know? If my life wanted to meet with me, I think I’d be rather excited,’ she smiled. ‘Something exciting like that happening, it must be wonderful.’

I was impressed by her acting against Father’s instructions and intrigued and surprised by her desire to meet with her life. I would have thought it would be the last thing she’d want to do. What would People say?

‘But mostly I was worried, that it was my fault too. I’m your mother and if there is something wrong with you well then—’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Mum.’

‘Of course there isn’t, I phrased it wrongly, I’m sorry. I meant—’

‘I know what you meant,’ I said quietly, ‘and it’s not your fault. If there was anything wrong with me, that is, it wouldn’t be your fault. You haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘Thank you, Lucy.’ She looked a decade younger then and it had never occurred to me until that moment that she would be feeling guilty about the state of my life. I thought that was solely my job.

‘So,’ she perked up again. ‘Did you meet with her?’

‘It’s a him actually, and I met him last week.’

‘Him?’

‘I was surprised too.’

‘Is he handsome?’ Mum giggled.

‘Mum, that’s disgusting, he’s my life.’

‘Of course.’ She tried to hide her smile but I could see her secretly hoping for wedding bells. Any man would do as a son-in-law, or perhaps she was hoping for a match for Riley.

‘He’s not handsome at all, he’s ugly actually.’ I pictured him with his clammy skin, bad breath and snivelling in his creased suit. ‘But anyway it’s fine, we’re fine. I don’t think he wants to meet again.’

Mum frowned again. ‘Are you sure?’ Then she left me for a moment and came back with a bag filled with envelopes with the life spirals imprinted on the front, all in my name and addressed to her home. ‘We received one in the post every day last week. And again yesterday morning.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘He must have forgotten my address. No wonder I didn’t receive them.’ I shook my head and laughed. ‘Maybe Life’s one big problem is disorganisation.’

Mum smiled at me, rather sadly.

Riley came out of his bedroom, car keys at the ready, and saw the envelope in my hand. ‘Oh, are we doing that now?’ He reached into a drawer in the hall table and came over to the dining table with a pile of envelopes in his hand. He threw them down on the table, grabbed a poppadom and crushed it in his mouth. ‘Do me a favour, will you, sis? Stop ignoring your life. These were blocking my postbox up.’

At first I had been indifferent towards my life, now, after the day I’d had, I was angry at it, but then these letters being sent to my family made me even angrier. I was due to meet him the following day in Starbucks. I had insisted he didn’t visit my apartment. Edna had called to tell me we’d been given the day off work and I was glad of it this time, not just for the break from the job but because I was genuinely embarrassed about the spectacular style in which my lack of Spanish was discovered. To deliberately put me in a situation just to get me to meet him was beyond despicable. He hadn’t just jeopardised my safety but the safety of everybody in that room. Because of this anger, I was looking forward to my second appointment with Life.

The following day as I worked through intelligent nasty things to say to my life, my mobile rang. It was a number I didn’t recognise so I ignored it. But it rang again. And again. Then there was banging on the door. I rushed to open it. It was my neighbour, whose name I couldn’t remember, in a panicked state.

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you. It’s my mother. My brother called me. They told me to go to the hospital immediately.’

‘No problem.’ I grabbed my keys and closed my door behind me. She was trembling.

‘It’s okay, you need to go to her,’ I said gently.

She nodded. ‘It’s just that I’ve never left him before …’

‘It’s okay. Trust me, it’ll be fine.’

She led me into the apartment and in a jittery state brought me around it, shooting orders at me. ‘I’ve made his bottle; warm it up before you feed him. He’ll only drink it if it’s warm. He feeds at seven thirty, he likes to watch In the Night Garden before going to bed. Just press play on the DVD. Then he goes straight down. He won’t sleep without Ben. Ben is the pirate teddy over there. If he wakes up and is distressed, singing “Twinkle Twinkle” will calm him down.’ She brought me around showing me everything, teething rings, cuddly toys, the steriliser in case I dropped the bottle and needed to make a fresh one. She looked at her watch. ‘I’d really better go.’ She stalled. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t, maybe I should stay.’

‘Go. Everything is fine here.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ She threw on her coat and opened the door. ‘Okay. I’m not expecting anybody to call around, and you won’t have friends over or anything, will you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘And you’ve got my mobile number, haven’t you?

‘In here,’ I waved my phone in the air.

‘Okay. Thank you.’ She bent over the playpen. ‘Bye, baby. Mummy will be home soon,’ she said, tears in her eyes. And she was gone.

Which left me in trouble. I called Life’s office but there was no answer, and his secretary didn’t answer either which meant she had finished for the day and he was already en route to Starbucks. I waited until it was time for us to meet before calling Starbucks.

‘Hello,’ a stressed-out guy sounding under pressure answered.

‘Hi, I’m supposed to be meeting someone there right now and I need to tell them—’

‘What’s their name?’ he interrupted.

‘Oh, em, actually I don’t know his name but he’s wearing a suit, probably looks a little stressed and tired and—’

‘Hey, someone on the phone for you,’ he shouted down my ear and he was gone. I heard the phone being passed over.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi,’ I said in my friendliest voice. ‘You’ll never believe what just happened.’

‘You’d better not be calling to cancel,’ he said immediately. ‘I seriously hope you’re just running late, which is insulting enough to be perfectly honest, but anything but cancelling.’

‘I am, but not for the reason you think.’

‘What reason do you think I think?’

‘That I’m not interested in you and that’s not true, well it kind of is true and I’m learning I have to change that, but it’s not the reason I’m cancelling. A neighbour of mine asked me to babysit. Her mother is really sick and she had to rush to the hospital.’

He was silent as he considered it. ‘That’s right up there with “my dog ate my homework”.’

‘No, it’s not, it’s not even close.’

‘What’s your neighbour’s name?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘That’s the worst lie you’ve ever come up with.’

‘Because it’s not a lie. If I was lying I would have made up a name like … Claire. Actually, I think that is her name. Claire,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Claire.’

‘Are you drunk?’

‘No. I’m babysitting.’

‘Where?’

‘In her apartment. Across the hall from mine. But you can’t come here in case that’s what you’re thinking. She specifically said no strangers allowed in.’

‘I wouldn’t be a stranger if you’d keep our appointments.’

‘Well, let’s not punish her for my mistakes, shall we.’

He ended the call in less of a rage than he began it and, I hoped, believing every word I’d said. However, I was settled on the rocking chair watching Makka Pakka on the Pinky Ponk drinking pinky ponk juice in In the Night Garden but really thinking about the events of the day before when I heard knocking on my door for the second time that night. I opened the door and saw him, standing at the door to my apartment, his back turned to me.

‘Are you checking up on me?’ I asked.

He turned.

‘You shaved,’ I said, surprised. ‘You don’t look nearly as miserable as you were.’

He look past me in into the apartment. ‘So, where’s the baby?’

‘You can’t come in. This is not my home, I can’t just let you in.’

‘Fine, but at least you can show me the baby. For all I know you could have just broken into this apartment in order to get away from me. And don’t look at me like that, that’s exactly the kind of thing you’d do.’

I sighed. ‘I can’t show you the baby.’

‘Just bring it to the door. I won’t touch it or anything.’

‘I can’t show you the baby.’

‘Show me the baby,’ he repeated in turn. ‘Show me the baby, show me the baby.’

‘Shut up,’ I hissed. ‘There is no baby.’

‘I knew it.’

‘No, you don’t know anything.’ Then I whispered, ‘She thinks there’s a baby, but there is no baby. There was a baby but he died, and she thinks or she pretends, or I don’t know what she does, but she acts like there’s a baby. There is no baby.’

He looked uncertain, looked past me in the hall. ‘I see a lot of baby things lying around.’

‘There are. She takes the buggy out for a walk but it’s always empty, she thinks he’s teething and crying all night but I don’t hear anything. There’s no baby here. I’ve been looking at the photos and he’s the oldest in this. I think he was at least one when he died. Here.’

I took a photo from the hall table and passed it to him.

‘Who’s the man?’

‘I think he’s her husband but I haven’t seen him for at least a year. I don’t think he could cope with her like this.’

‘Well, that’s depressing.’ He handed the photo back to me and we sat in silence for a moment, both sobered by the situation. Life broke the minute’s silence. ‘So you have to stay in there even though there’s no baby?’

‘If I leave and she comes back, I can’t tell her that it’s because she has no baby, that would be cruel.’

‘So you can’t come out and I can’t go in,’ he said. ‘Oh, the irony.’ He smiled and for the briefest moment he was attractive. ‘We can talk here,’ he said.

‘We already are.’

He slithered down the door and sat on the ground in the hallway. I followed him and sat across from him in the hallway of the apartment. A neighbour got out of the elevator, took a look at us and walked through the middle. We stared at one another in silence.

‘People can see you, can’t they?’ I asked.

‘What do you think I am, a ghost?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I may be completely invisible to you but other people in this world pay plenty of attention to me. Other people actually want to know about me.’

‘Okay, okay, touchy,’ I said.

‘Are you ready to talk?’

‘I’m angry at you,’ I said almost immediately, suddenly remembering all that I’d rehearsed in my head.

‘Why?’

‘Because of what you did to all those people yesterday.’

‘What I did?’

‘Yes, they didn’t deserve to get involved in your … your curveball or whatever you called it.’

‘Hold on, you think I manipulated those people into doing what happened yesterday?’

‘Well … didn’t you?’

‘No!’ he said emphatically. ‘What do you think I am? Actually, don’t answer that. All I did was synchronise the Augusto Fernández thing, I had nothing to do with whatever his name is.’

‘Steve,’ I said firmly. ‘Steve Roberts.’

He looked amused. ‘Ah, now there’s a loyalty I didn’t see last week. What was it you called him? Sausage?’

I looked away.

‘I didn’t organise that. You are responsible for your own life and what happens in it, so are the other people. Your life had nothing to do with what happened there. You were feeling guilty,’ he said, and because it wasn’t a question I didn’t answer.

I put my head in my hands. ‘I have a headache.’

‘Thinking about things will do that, you haven’t done it for a while.’

‘But you said you planned the Fernández thing. You meddled with his life.’

‘I didn’t meddle. I synchronised your lives. Made your paths cross in order to help both of you.’

‘How did that help him? The poor man had a gun to his head and it didn’t need to happen.’

‘The poor man had a water pistol to his head and I think you’ll find he’ll be better off after all this.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. We’ll have to watch this space.’

‘Didn’t matter at the time that it was a water pistol,’ I grumbled.

‘I’m sure it didn’t. Are you okay?’

I was silent.

‘Hey.’ He stretched out his leg and tapped my foot with his, playfully.

‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’

‘Ah, Lucy,’ he sighed. He came across the hall and hugged me. I pushed away at first but he held on tighter and eventually I gave in and hugged him back, my cheek against the fabric of his cheap suit, breathing in his musty smell. We pulled away and he tenderly wiped imaginary tears away with this fingers. His kindness made him look moderately more attractive. He handed me a tissue and I gave my nose a loud, wet blow.

‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘You’ll wake the baby.’

We both laughed, guiltily.

‘I’m pathetic, aren’t I?’

‘I’m leaning towards saying yes but I should ask you first, in what way?’

‘Here I am after being held at gunpoint with a water pistol, babysitting a baby that doesn’t exist.’

‘Sitting with your life,’ he added.

‘Good point. Sitting with my life, that is a person. It doesn’t get any weirder than this.’

‘It might. We haven’t even started yet.’

‘Why doesn’t she have her life following her around? How sad is this?’ I referred to the toy-littered floor behind me.

He shrugged, ‘I don’t get involved in other people’s lives. You are my sole concern.’

‘Her life must be in denial,’ I said. ‘You should take a leaf out of her life’s book.’

‘Or out of yours.’

I sighed. ‘You really are that unhappy?’

He nodded, and he looked away from me. He worked his jaw as he took a moment to compose himself.

‘But I don’t understand how things are so bad for you. I feel fine.’

‘You don’t feel fine.’ He shook his head.

‘I don’t wake up every day singing “Good Morning”, but I’m not,’ I lowered my voice, ‘pretending that things are there when they’re not.’

‘Aren’t you?’ He looked amused. ‘It’s like this. If you fall and break a leg you feel pain and you go to the doctor, they take an X-ray and you hold it up to the light and everybody can see the broken bone. Yeah?’

I nodded.

‘You have a sore tooth, you can feel the pain, so you go to the dentist and he sticks a camera in your mouth, sees the problem, you need a root canal or something, yeah?’

I nodded again.

‘These are all very acceptable things in modern society. You’re sick; you go to the doctor, you get antibiotics. You’re depressed; you talk to a therapist, they might give you anti-depressants. Your greys show; you get your colour done. But with your life you make a few bad decisions, get unlucky a few times, whatever, but you have to keep going, right? Nobody can see the underneath part of who you are, and if you can’t see it – if an X-ray and a camera can’t take a picture of it for you – in this day and age the belief is, it’s not there. But I am here. I’m the other part of you. The X-ray to your life. A mirror is held up to your face and I’m the reflection, I show how you’re hurting, how you’re unhappy. It’s all reflected on me. Make sense?’

Which made sense about the bad breath, the clammy skin and the bad haircut. I mulled it over. ‘Yes, but that’s rather unfair to you.’

‘That’s the card I was dealt. Now it’s up to me to make myself happy. So you see, this is as much about me as it is about you. The more you live your life, the happier I feel, the more satisfied you are, the healthier I am.’

‘So your happiness depends on me.’

‘I prefer to see us as a team. You’re the Lois Lane to my Superman. The Pinky to my Brain.’

‘The X-ray to my broken leg,’ I said and we smiled and I felt a kind of a truce being called.

‘Did you talk to your family about what happened? I bet they were worried about you.’

‘You know I did.’

‘I think it’s better that we both treat our conversations as if I don’t know anything.’

‘Don’t worry, I do. I saw my mum and Riley yesterday. I went to Riley’s. We had Pakistani takeaway and Mum insisted on making me hot chocolate like she did after I’d fallen when I was little,’ I laughed.

‘That sounds nice.’

‘It was.’

‘Did you talk about yesterday?’

‘I told them I was in another office, running an errand, and that I missed the entire thing.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘I don’t know. So I wouldn’t worry them.’

‘Well, aren’t you the thoughtful one,’ he said sarcastically. ‘It wasn’t to protect them; it was to protect you. So you wouldn’t have to talk about it, so you wouldn’t have to admit feeling anything. That weird word you don’t like.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. All the things you say sound very complicated and I don’t think in that way.’

‘Want to know my theory?’

‘Go on.’ I rested my chin on my hand.

‘A couple of years ago when Blake …’ he stalled, ‘was dumped by you.’

I smiled.

‘You started lying to other people, and because you lied to them you made it a lot easier to lie to yourself.’

‘That’s an interesting theory but I have no idea if it’s true or not.’

‘Well, we’ll put it to the test. Soon you’ll have to stop lying to others – which will be harder than you think, by the way – and then you’ll start learning the truth about yourself, which will also be harder than you think.’

I rubbed my aching head, wishing I hadn’t got myself into this mess. ‘So how does it happen?’

‘You let me spend time with you.’

‘Sure, weekly appointments?’

‘No, I mean, I come to work with you, meet your friends, that kind of thing.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t just bring you to the dinner table at my parents’ house or out with friends. They’ll think I’m a freak.’

‘You’re afraid they’ll know things about you.’

‘If my life – you – sits down at the table they’ll pretty much know everything.’

‘Why is that so terrifying?’

‘Because it’s private. You’re private. No one brings along their life to a dinner party.’

‘I think you’ll find that most people that you love do exactly that. But it’s not the point, the point is we need to start doing more things together.’

‘That’s fine with me, just let’s not you and me do things with friends and family. Let’s keep it separate.’

‘But you’re doing that already. None of them know anything about you.’

‘It’s not going to happen,’ I said.

He was silent.

‘You’re going to turn up anyway, aren’t you?’ I asked.

He nodded.

I sighed. ‘I don’t lie to everyone, you know.’

‘I know. The wrong number.’

‘See? Another weird thing.’

‘Not really. Sometimes wrong numbers are the right numbers,’ he smiled.