hat do you want to do today?’ I asked.

We were enjoying a lazy morning on the couch; the Sunday papers were strewn around the place, used and abused, as we’d searched for our favourite sections and discarded the remainder and then fell in and out of silence as we commented on, laughed at and shared stories we were reading. I was perfectly content in his company and it seemed he was in mine too. My clothes curtains were open to allow the sun to shine through and the windows were wide open, bringing in the fresh air and the sound of Sunday silence. The flat smelled of pancakes and maple syrup, which he’d made, and fresh coffee, which stood on the counter, still piping. Mr Pan had settled in, on and all around Life’s shoe, looking like he was the cat who got the cream, which ironically he had, along with fresh blueberries which I had planted and grown myself in the organic roof garden I’d cultivated since Life had come into my world. I’d freshly plucked them that morning while wearing a straw sunhat wrapped with a white ribbon and a white see-through linen dress that blew in a hypnotic way in the gentle breeze on the rooftop to the delight of the male neighbours, who were chilled out on deckchairs, oiled up with sun lotion like cars in a showroom.

Okay, I lied.

Life bought the blueberries. We don’t have a rooftop garden. I saw the dress in a magazine and miraculously, I had become a blonde in that daydream.

‘Today,’ I continued, closing my eyes, ‘I just want to stay in bed.’

‘You should call your mother.’

They swiftly opened. ‘Why?’

‘Because she’s trying to plan a wedding and you’re not helping.’

‘It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard; they’re already married, it’s just an excuse to give her something to do. She needs to take up pottery. Besides, neither are Riley or Philip helping. And I can’t meet her today because the carpet people are coming. They’ll probably be late. Those kinds of people are always late. I think I’ll cancel them.’ I reached for my phone.

‘You will not. I found a grey hair on my sock today and I know it wasn’t from a head and I know it wasn’t mine.’

I put the phone back down.

‘And you should call Jamie back.’

‘Why?’

‘When has he ever called you before?’

‘Never.’

‘So it must be important.’

‘Or he was drunk and he hit against his phone and dialled my number by mistake.’

Life looked displeased.

‘So he was going to say sorry for what happened last night at dinner, and he doesn’t need to apologise, he didn’t do anything wrong. He was on my side.’

‘So call him back and tell him that.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it with anyone.’

‘Fine, you just sweep more crap under the rug, because that rug’s going to get so bumpy it’ll trip you up.’

‘You think any of these phone calls are more important than spending time with my life?’ I thought I’d win him on that.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Lucy, you are in danger of going in entirely the wrong direction. I didn’t want you to become a selfish woman who sits around all day talking about herself with her life. You need to find a balance. Take care of you but take care of the people who care about you too.’

‘But it’s hard,’ I whinged, covering my head with a pillow.

‘And that’s Life. Why did I want to meet you?’

‘Because I was ignoring you.’ I spoke the words I was trained to speak. ‘Because I wasn’t dealing with my life.’

‘And now what are you doing?’

‘Dealing with my life. Spending every little second with my life, so much so that I can barely pee on my own.’

‘You’d be able to pee in private if you fixed the light bulb in the bathroom.’

‘It’s so much hassle,’ I sighed.

‘How is it?’

‘Firstly, I can’t reach it.’

‘Get a stepladder.’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘So stand on the toilet.’

‘It’s a cheap plastic cover and I’ll fall through.’

‘So stand on the edge of the bath.’

‘It’s dangerous.’

‘Right.’ Life stood up. ‘Stand up.’

I groaned.

‘Stand up,’ he repeated.

I pulled myself up like a grumpy teen.

‘Now go across to your neighbour and ask her if you can have a loan of a stepladder.’

I collapsed back on the couch again.

‘Do it,’ he said sternly.

I stood up again, huffily, and made my way to the door. I went across to Claire’s apartment and knocked and returned moments later with a stepladder.

‘See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’

‘We talked about the weather, so yes, it was bad. I hate mindless talk.’

He snorted. ‘Now put the ladder in the bathroom.’

I did as I was told.

‘Now climb up.’

I followed his instructions.

‘Now unscrew the light bulb.’

He shone the torch up so that I could see what I was doing. I unscrewed the old bulb, whimpering like a child who’d been forced to eat vegetables. It finally came loose so I stopped my complaining to concentrate. I handed him the old bulb.

‘Act like I’m not here.’

I tutted, then sang, ‘I hate my life, I hate my life,’ over and over while climbing back down the stepladder, put the bulb in the sink, threw him a nasty look, took the new bulb out of the box, climbed back up the ladder and began to screw it in. Then it was in. I climbed back down the ladder, flicked the switch and the room was flooded with light.

‘Yay, me!’ I said, lifting my hand to high-five Life.

He looked at me as if I was the saddest specimen he had ever seen.

‘I’m not high-fiving you for changing a light bulb.’

I lowered my hand, cringing slightly, then perked up. ‘What now, more pancakes?’

‘Now that the room is lit up, you could do with giving this place a good clean.’

‘Nooo,’ I groaned. ‘You see, that’s why I don’t do things, it leads to having to do other things.’ I folded up the stepladder and left it in the hallway beneath the coat rack, beside the mucky boots from the summer festival, the last festival I went to with Blake, when I’d been informed I’d flashed Iggy Pop from my perch on Blake’s shoulders.

‘You’re not going to leave that there.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s going to gather dust and stay there for the next twenty years just like those boots covered in muck. Give it back to Claire.’

I did what I was told and dragged it back across the hall. ‘Come on.’ I took him by the hand. ‘Let’s snuggle on the couch again.’

‘No.’ He let go of me and laughed. ‘I’m not lying around here all day, I’m going to take the rest of the day off.’

‘What do you mean? Where are you going?’

He smiled. ‘Even I need a rest.’

‘But where will you go? Where do you live?’ I looked up towards the sky and jerked my head. ‘Is it up there?’

‘The next floor?’

‘No! The … you know.’ I jerked my head again.

‘The sky?’ He opened his mouth wider than I’ve ever seen a person open it and he laughed. ‘Ah Lucy, you really make me laugh.’

I laughed along with him as if I’d made a joke, though I hadn’t at all.

‘I can give you some homework before I leave, if you want, just so you don’t miss me.’

I scrunched up my nose. He made for the door.

‘Okay, fine, sit back down.’ I patted the sofa. All of a sudden I just didn’t want to be alone.

‘What do you dream about, Lucy?’

‘Cool, I love dream conversations.’ I got cosy. ‘Last night was a sex-with-the-cute-guy-on-the-train dream.’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.’

‘We didn’t do it on the train.’

‘No, I meant because he’s so young and you’re going to be thirty any minute now,’ he teased. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I meant. I mean, what do you dream about as in your hopes and ambitions?’

‘Oh,’ I said, bored. I thought about it. Then, ‘I don’t get the question.’

He sighed and spoke to me as if I was a child. ‘What things would you really, really like to do if you could? Something you’d like to accomplish, like a dream job for example.’

I thought about it. ‘An X Factor judge so I can throw stuff at the contestants if they’re crap. Or pull a trapdoor and they go flying down into a bath of beans or something, that’d be cool. And I’d win the fashion contest every week, Cheryl and Dannii would be like, “Oh, Lucy, where did you get your dress?” and I’d be like, “Oh, this? It’s just a little something I found on my curtain pole.” And Simon would be like, “Hey, you two girls should take some tips from Lucy, she’s—”’

‘Okay, okay, okay,’ Life said, putting his fingers to his temples and lightly massaging his head. ‘Any other better dreams?’

I thought about it some more, feeling under pressure. ‘I’d really, really like to win the lottery so that I never have to work again and can buy all the stuff I want.’

‘That’s not a real dream,’ he said.

‘Why not? It happens to people. That woman in Limerick? She won thirty million and now lives on a desert island, or something.’

‘So your dream is to live on a desert island.’

‘No.’ I waved my hand dismissively. ‘That’d be boring and I hate coconut. I’d take the money though.’

‘That’s a lazy dream, Lucy. If you have a dream, you want to at least be able to try to achieve it in some way. Something that is seemingly beyond your grasp but that you know that with a bit of hard work you could possibly achieve. Walking to your local newsagent to buy a lottery ticket is not inspiring. Dreams should make you think, If I had the guts to do it and I didn’t care what anybody thought, this is what I’d really do.’ He looked at me hopefully, expectantly.

‘I’m a normal person, what do you want me to say? I really want to see the Sistine Chapel? I don’t give a crap about a painting that I have to dislocate my neck to see. That is not a dream to me, that is a requirement whilst on holiday in Rome, which by the way I already carried out when Blake brought me there on our very first weekend away.’ I was aware that I was standing up and raising my voice but I couldn’t help it, I felt strongly that this was a ridiculous issue he had raised. ‘Or what else do people dream about? Jumping out of airplanes? I’ve done it, even did an instructor’s course so I could pull you out of an airplane any day of the week if I wanted. See the Great Pyramids? Done it. On my twenty-fifth birthday with Blake. It was hot and they are as big and majestic as you think they are but would I ever go again? No, a weird man tried to get me in his car when Blake went to the toilet in the nearby McDonald’s. Swim with dolphins? Did it. Would I do it again? No. Nobody tells you they stink up close. Bungee jump? Did it, when Blake and I were in Sydney. I even did shark-cage diving in Capetown, not to mention a hot-air balloon trip with Blake for Valentine’s Day one year. I’ve done most things that people dream about and they weren’t even my dreams. They were just things that I did. What were they talking about in the paper today?’ I picked up one of the pages I’d been reading and stabbed an article. ‘A seventy-year-old wants to go up in one of those space aeroplanes so that he can see the earth from space. Well, I’m living on earth right now and it’s pretty shitty from here, why would I want to see it from another angle? What could that possibly do for me? Those dreams are a waste of time, and that was the most ridiculous question you’ve ever asked me. I used to do stuff all the time, so how dare you make me feel like I’m nothing without a dream. Is it not enough that my life is insufficient enough for you that my dreams have to be too?’

I took a deep breath after my rant.

‘Okay.’ He stood up and grabbed his coat. ‘It was a stupid question.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘Then why did you ask it?’

‘Lucy, if you’re not interested in this conversation then we won’t have it.’

‘I’m not interested, but I want to know why you asked it,’ I said defensively.

‘You’re right, you’ve clearly lived your life to the fullest and there’s nothing left to do and now it’s time for you to stop. You might as well die.’

I gasped.

‘I’m not saying you’re going to die, Lucy,’ he said, frustrated with me. ‘Not now, anyway. You will eventually.’

I gasped again.

‘We all are.’

‘Oh. Yes.’

He opened the door and looked back at me. ‘The reason I asked you, is because regardless of what you say, or how much you lie, you are not happy with where you are right now, and when I ask you about what you want, anything in the whole entire world, no holds barred, you say winning money and buying stuff.’ He spoke sharply and I was embarrassed.

‘I still think most people would say the lottery.’

He threw me a look and made for the door again.

‘You’re angry with me. I don’t understand why you’re angry with me, just because you don’t like my dream. I mean, this is ridiculous.’

He spoke gently which unnerved me more. ‘I’m angry because not only are you not happy where you are, but you can’t even think of where you’d rather be. Which I think is …’ He searched for the word. ‘Sad. No wonder you’re stuck in a rut.’

I thought about it some more, thought about my dreams, my wishes, my ambitions, where I wanted to be that would make me feel better than being here. I couldn’t come up with anything.

‘Thought so,’ he finally said. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He took his coat and rucksack and left the apartment, which was the worst possible end to the most beautiful beginning of a day.

His comments niggled at me. They always did, it was as though he spoke in a certain tone that only managed to speak to the brain like a whistle for a dog inaudible to the human ear. I tried to think about my dreams, where I wanted to be, what I really wanted but I think to know what you want, you have to know what you don’t want and all I could figure out was that I really wished Life hadn’t contacted me so I could have continued on the path I was going on. Life had complicated things, Life had tried to make things move on when I was perfectly content. He called it a rut, but he’d moved me from that place already, by merely pointing out that I was there, and I would never be able to go back. I liked my rut, I missed my rut, I would mourn my rut forever.

By midday, I had a headache but a tidy flat, and unsurprisingly, the cleaning company hadn’t arrived. Nor had they by twelve fifteen. By twelve thirty I was beginning to celebrate the fact that they’d forgotten and was making arrangements in my head on how best to spend my freedom, but I wasn’t successful with coming to any conclusions. Melanie was away but even still, we hadn’t had any contact since our last meeting and I know I wasn’t top of her list of people to talk to right now. After dinner the night before, my friends who thought I was a cheat weren’t on my own list of people to talk to. And though the demise of Blake and me was swiftly followed by my personality transplant – which at the time I thought nobody noticed but now, with the benefit of Life’s teaching, I could now see that everybody had noticed – I understood their thinking but it still hurt.

A knock at the door disturbed my thoughts. It was Claire, with a wet and wrinkly face, crying again.

‘Lucy,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, I heard the television on and … well, I was wondering if you could mind Conor again. I wouldn’t ask, only the hospital have called me again and said it’s an emergency and …’ She broke down.

‘Of course. Do you mind if I keep him in here with me? I have people coming to clean the carpet and I need to be here.’

She thought about it; she didn’t look too certain but then she didn’t have much choice. She went back into her apartment and closed the door. I wondered if she sat down and slowly counted to ten before returning to me or if she actually went through the motions of picking him up and strapping him in. I felt a deep sadness for her. The door opened and the empty buggy was pushed out and into my apartment, the straps tied.

‘He’s been asleep for five minutes,’ she whispered. ‘He usually sleeps for two hours in the day so I should be home by the time he wakes. He hasn’t been well lately, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’ She frowned and examined the empty buggy. ‘So he may sleep a little longer than usual.’

‘Okay.’

‘Thank you.’ She took one last look at the pushchair and turned to go. When she looked out into the hallway there was a man standing outside her apartment.

‘Nigel,’ she said, shocked.

He turned around. ‘Claire.’ I recognised him as the man in Claire’s photographs: her husband, Conor’s father. He looked at the number on her door and then at the number on mine. ‘Am I at the wrong apartment?’

‘No, this is Lucy, our … my neighbour. She’s going to babysit.’

He looked at me in such a way that I wanted to curl up and die. I knew he was thinking that I was taking advantage of her but what could I do, tell her that there was no child? Surely she knew that, deep down in her heart.

‘For free,’ I blurted out just so that he would at least forgive me for that. ‘And she wouldn’t go otherwise.’

He nodded once, understanding, then his eyes moved back to her. His voice was gentle. ‘I’ll drive you there. Okay?’

I closed the door behind them.

‘Hi again,’ I said, to the empty space in the buggy. ‘Mummy and Daddy won’t be long.’

Then I put my head in my hands and sat slumped across the counter. Mr Pan leaped up and I felt his cold nose near my ear. I Googled people’s dreams and ambitions, and instantly bored, I closed the laptop. Twelve forty-five came and went and then I had an idea. I took a photograph of Gene Kelly’s face on the poster on my bathroom door and sent it to Don Lockwood with a text:

–Saw this and thought of you.

Then I waited. And waited. Anxiously. Then hopefully. Then with deep disappointment. Then with a hurt so deep it cut me like a knife. I didn’t blame him. I’d told him never to call me again but still I hoped. Then the hope faded and I was depressed. And alone, and empty, and lost. And not even one minute had passed by.

I opened the fridge-freezer and stared at the empty shelves. The longer I stared, the more the food didn’t appear. Then my phone beeped. I slammed the door and dived on the phone. Typically, simultaneously, the door buzzed too. I decided to savour the text and answered the door first. A red Magic Carpet stared back at me. It was emblazoned on the chest of the man who faced me. I looked up; he was wearing a blue cap with another picture of a carpet on it, low over his face. I looked behind him: nobody else, no tools or equipment.

‘Roger?’ I asked, stepping aside for him to come in.

‘Roger is my dad,’ he said, entering the flat. ‘He doesn’t work weekends.’

‘Okay.’

He looked around. Then at me.

‘Do I know you?’ he asked.

‘Eh. I don’t know. My name is Lucy Silchester.’

‘Yeah, I have it on the …’ He lifted his clipboard in the air but didn’t finish his sentence. But he kept staring at me, right into my eyes. Searching and curious. It made me nervous. I looked away and took a few steps to the kitchen so that the counter would separate us. He realised this and took a few steps back, which I appreciated.

‘So where are the others?’ I asked.

‘The others?’

‘The cleaning people,’ I said. ‘Isn’t there a team?’

‘No, just me and my dad. But he doesn’t work weekends as I said, so …’ He looked around. ‘Is it okay if it’s just me?’

His asking made it easier.

‘Yes, sure.’

‘My stuff is in the van. I just wanted to come up and take a look before I brought it all the way up.’

‘Oh. Okay. Should I help you carry something?’

‘No, thanks. I’m sure you can’t leave the little one.’ He smiled and tiny dimples appeared and he was suddenly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Then I thought of Blake, and then he wasn’t any more. It always happened like that.

I looked at the buggy. ‘Oh, that. It’s not mine. I mean, he. It’s a neighbour’s. I mean he is a neighbour’s. I’m minding him.’

‘How old is he?’ He smiled fondly, lifting his chin so he could see into the buggy.

I pushed the cover down further so he couldn’t. ‘Oh, one-ish. He’s asleep.’ As if that explained anything.

‘I’ll try to work as quietly as possible. Are there any areas in particular you want me to concentrate on?’

‘Just the floor.’ I meant it seriously but it came out funny. He laughed.

‘The entire floor?’

‘Just the dirty bits.’

We both smiled. He was still cute, even when placed on the Blake barometer.

‘So that’s probably the entire thing,’ I said.

He looked around at the floor and I was suddenly aware of a handsome man standing in my little private hovel. I was embarrassed. Suddenly he got down on his knees and examined an area on the floor. He rubbed it with his hand.

‘Is that—?’

‘Oh yes, I just wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget. I couldn’t find any paper.’

He looked at me with a big grin. ‘Did you use permanent marker?’

‘Eh …’ I rooted in the drawer in the kitchen for the marker. ‘Here.’

He studied it. ‘This is permanent, you know.’

‘Oh. Can you get it out? Because if you can’t, my landlord will roll me up in it and throw me out.’

‘I’ll try.’ He looked at me, amused. ‘I’ll get my equipment from the van.’

I sat back on the stool and intended to make the time pass by stalking Don Lockwood. I read his text.

–She rears her pretty head. So how has your week been?

–Haven’t been held at water-pistol point since Tuesday. How’s Tom?

I heard a phone beep in the corridor and sensed the cleaning guy was back. But he didn’t appear. I peeped my head around the corner and saw him reading his phone. ‘Sorry,’ he said, popping it into his pocket. He picked up a machine that looked like an oversized vacuum cleaner and carried it inside. The muscles in his arms puffed out to three times the size of my head. I tried not to stare but I failed.

‘I’m just going to sit here. If you need anything, if you get lost or anything, I’m here.’

He laughed, then studied the oversized couch.

‘It came from a bigger apartment,’ I explained.

‘It’s nice.’ He had his hands on his hips, inspecting it. ‘It might be a problem to move.’

‘It comes apart.’ Like everything else in here.

He looked around. ‘Do you mind if I put some of it on the bed and some in the bathroom?’

‘Of course, but if you find any money underneath, it’s mine. Anything else is yours.’

He lifted the couch and I stared at his muscles, which were so large they pushed out all thoughts from my head. ‘I won’t have much use for this,’ he laughed, looking at a dusty cerise pink bra on the floor. I tried to think of a funny response but instead I ran to pick it up, stubbed my toe on the corner of the kitchen counter and went flying onto the couch.

‘Sshhit.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ I squeaked. I grabbed my bra and tried to crumple it into a ball, then I held my toe until the pain went away. ‘I’m sure you’ve never seen a bra before, I’m glad I dramatically dived onto the floor to get it,’ I said through gritted teeth.

He laughed. ‘What is it with this guy?’ he asked, passing Gene Kelly on the bathroom door and placing another part of the couch inside. ‘Girls love him.’

‘He was the working man’s dancer,’ I explained, rubbing my toe. ‘None of that pretentious top-’n’-tails stuff that Fred Astaire did. Gene was, you know, a real man.’

He seemed interested, then went back to his work and didn’t say another word. Finally I sensed no movement so I looked up. He was standing in the middle of the room with a piece of the couch in his arms, looking around, lost. I could see his dilemma: the bed was piled high, the bathroom including the bath was jam packed and there was nowhere else to place the couch.

‘We could put it out in the corridor,’ I said.

‘It will block the way.’

‘What about the kitchen?’

There was a small space on the floor, which was where the buggy was. I moved the buggy and he came towards me, but I don’t know what happened, his toe hit something, I heard his boot bang, maybe against the counter, and the couch went flying out of his arms and on to the buggy.

‘Oh, my God,’ he shouted. ‘Oh, my God.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said quickly, trying to explain. ‘It’s okay, there’s nothing—’

‘Oh, fuck. Oh, my God,’ he repeated over and over as he tried to lift the couch off the buggy.

‘Relax, it’s okay. There’s no baby in there,’ I said loudly. He paused and looked at me like I was the oddest person on the planet.

‘There isn’t?’

‘No, look.’ I helped him lift the couch and place it on top of the counter. ‘See, it’s empty.’

‘But you said …’

‘Yeah, I know. It’s a long story.’

He closed his eyes and swallowed, sweat on his brow. ‘Jesus.’

‘I know, I’m sorry, but it’s okay.’

‘Why do you—’

‘Please don’t ask.’

‘But you—’

‘Honestly, it’s really best you don’t ask.’

He looked at me once more for an answer but I shook my head.

‘Fuck,’ he whispered, taking a deep breath. He gave the buggy one more look to make sure he hadn’t imagined it and then took another deep breath and went about setting up his giant vacuum-cleaning equipment. Then took his phone out of his pocket and texted. Tap, tap, tap. I rolled my eyes at Mr Pan. We were going to be here all day if he kept up with that phone.

‘So.’ He finally turned to me. ‘What I’m going to do first is use hot-water extraction to clean the carpet. Then I’ll protect it and deodorise it.’

‘Okay. Were you in an infomercial, by any chance?’

‘No,’ he groaned. ‘That was my dad. Fancies himself as a bit of an actor. He wants me to do one but I think I’d rather …’ He thought about it. ‘Yep, I’d rather die.’

I laughed. ‘It could be fun.’

He looked at me, widened his eyes. ‘Really? Would you do it?’

‘If you paid me I would pretty much do anything.’ I frowned. ‘Except what I just made it sound like I’d do. I wouldn’t do that.’

‘I wouldn’t ask you to. Not for money, I mean.’ His face pinked. ‘Can we change the subject?’

‘Yes, please.’

My phone beeped and we both took it as a good sign to stop talking immediately.

–Bloody Tom. He met a girl and decided to grow up, he’s moving in with her next week. I’m a flatmate down so … thirty-five-and-three-quarter-year-old tall dark handsome man seeking anybody who can pay the rent.

I texted back.

–Are you looking for someone too?! I’ll send the word out. Personal question: what’s your dream? Something that you really want.

The carpet cleaner’s phone beeped. I tutted, but my disapproval couldn’t be heard over the sound of the cleaner. He turned it off and took his phone from his pocket.

‘You’re popular today.’

‘Yeah, sorry.’ He stopped to read it. Then he texted back.

My phone beeped.

–A coffee. Want one now really badly.

I looked up at the cleaning guy; he was cleaning away, deep in thought. I hopped off the stool.

‘Would you like a coffee?’

He didn’t respond.

‘Excuse me, would you like a coffee?’ I said louder.

He looked up. ‘You must have read my mind. Would love one, thanks.’

He took a slug, placed it on the counter and went back to work. I sat down and read back over my texts, reading between the lines for more answers while I waited for another response. The carpet cleaner took out his phone again. I really wanted to say something but I held my tongue because I began to study him then, the small secret smile that was on his lips as he texted, and it immediately made me hate the person at the other end of that phone. He was texting a girl and I hated her.

‘Is this going to take long?’ I finally said, without the niceness in my voice.

‘Sorry?’ He looked up from the text.

‘The carpet. Will it take long?’

‘About two hours.’

‘I’m going to take the baby for a walk.’

He looked confused. He should be. I was. I received Don’s response when I was in the elevator.

–My dream is to win the lottery so I can quit my job and never have to work again. But what I really really want? Is to meet you.

I stared at the text, open-mouthed. The elevator had reached the ground floor and the doors had opened but I was taken aback and forgot to step out, partly because we had the same lazy dream but mostly because he had said such a beautiful borderline-cheesy thing that was actually quite adorable but terrifying. The doors to the elevator closed and before I’d a chance to press the buttons, it went up again. I sighed and leaned against the wall. We stopped on my floor. It was the cleaning guy.

‘Hello.’

‘I forgot to get out.’

He laughed and looked in the buggy. ‘So what’s his name?’

‘Conor.’

‘He’s cute.’

We laughed.

‘Are you sure we don’t know one another?’ he asked.

I studied him again. ‘Did you used to be a stockbroker?’

‘No,’ he laughed.

‘Did you ever pretend to be one?’

‘No.’

‘Well then, no.’ I really think I’d have remembered if I’d met him before – he was the highest up on the Blake barometer of any other human being living or dead. He was vaguely familiar but that may have been because I’d been staring at him all morning like a dirty old man. I frowned and shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.’

He pointed at his chest where there was a stitched-in label. It said, Donal. ‘My mother did it, insisted it would make the company more modern. It was her idea to do the infomercial. She read one marketing book about Starbucks and now she thinks she’s Donald Trump.’

‘Without the comb-over, I hope.’

He laughed. The doors opened and he let me walk out first. ‘Whoa,’ I said when we got outside. The van was bright yellow with a red magic flying carpet emblazoned on the side. On the roof rack was a larger-than-life rolled-up plastic red carpet.

‘You see? This is what they force me to drive. The carpet turns around when the engine’s on.’

‘That’s some book your mother read. It’s just for work though, isn’t it? It’s not as though it’s your everyday van.’ From the way he was looking at me I could tell I was wrong. New thought. ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if this was your everyday van?’

He laughed. ‘Yep. It’s a real babe-magnet, isn’t it?’

‘It’s like a superhero car,’ I said, circling it, and he looked at it again with new eyes.

‘I never thought of it like that.’ Then he studied me again. It was like he was trying to say something but couldn’t. I got goose bumps. ‘I’ll be finished in about an hour,’ he said instead. ‘The floor will be wet so I advise you not to walk on it for a few hours. I’ll come back this evening to put your furniture back if that’s okay and make sure you’re happy with the service.’

I was going to tell him not to bother coming back to replace the furniture, that I could do it, but I stopped myself, partly because there was no way in the world I could lift all the furniture, but mostly it was because I actually wanted him to come back. ‘Don’t worry about locking up, you can just close the door behind you.’

‘Okay, great. Nice meeting you, Lucy.’

‘Nice meeting you too, Donal. See you later.’

‘It’s a date,’ he said, and we laughed.

Conor and I sat on the bench in the park and when no one was looking I put him in the swing. I knew he wasn’t there, but for Claire, and for the memory of him, I stayed there until the sun went down behind the park trees, pushing him back and forth and hoping his little soul somewhere out there was saying Wheeee, just like mine suddenly was.

That evening, when the buggy was safely back with Claire, I took my shoes off, brought a high stool to the centre of the floor and sat down to watch Blake’s travel show. Just as it began I heard a key in the door. It opened and Life entered, wearing a new blazer.

‘How did you get a key?’

‘I made a copy of yours when you were asleep,’ he said, taking off his blazer and tossing the keys onto the counter like he lived here.

‘Thanks for asking for my permission.’

‘Didn’t need to, your family already signed the paperwork.’

‘Ah-ah-ah,’ I said as he took a step onto the carpet. ‘Shoes off, it’s just been cleaned.’

‘What are you watching?’ he asked, doing as he was told and looking at the paused image of a snake rising from a basket.

‘Blake’s travel show.’

He raised his eyebrows and studied me. ‘Really? I thought you never watched the show.’

‘I do sometimes.’

‘How often?’

‘Only on Sundays.’

‘I believe his show is only on on Sundays.’ He brought a stool beside me. ‘The carpet doesn’t look any different.’

‘That’s because it’s wet. It’ll brighten up when it dries.’

‘What were they like?’

‘Who?’

‘The carpet people.’

‘It was just one man.’

‘And?’

‘And he was very nice and he cleaned the carpet. Can you stop talking? I want to watch this.’

‘Touchy.’

Mr Pan leaped into his lap and we sat uncomfortably on our stools and watched Blake. He was climbing across some rocky mountains, wearing a navy vest that was covered in sweat stains and revealed rippling back muscles. It made me think of the carpet-cleaning guy. It struck me as unusual that Blake, the most perfect man in the universe, would cause me to think positively of another man, and once I was comfortable with that thought, I compared their muscle sizes.

‘Does he wear fake tan?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Does he do his own stunts?’

‘Shut up.’

I paused the TV, searched for her. She wasn’t there.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Shut up.’

‘So what is the obsession with Blake anyway?’

‘I’m not obsessed.’

‘I mean last night. I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it but I think we should. I mean, you broke up three years ago. What’s the deal with your friends? Why are they so involved in what happened with you and him?’

‘Blake is their centre of gravity,’ I said, watching him climb across the cliff barehanded. ‘We both used to be, believe it or not. We were the ones who arranged everything, who brought everyone together. We held dinner parties every week, had parties, organised holidays, nights out, trips away, that kind of thing.’ I pressed pause, studied the scene, unpaused it again. ‘Blake is a lively guy, he’s addictive, everyone likes him.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Really?’ I looked at him surprised, then turned back to the TV quickly so I wouldn’t miss anything. ‘Well, you’re biased, it doesn’t count.’

I paused the TV again, then unpaused.

‘What exactly are you doing?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Please stop telling me to shut up.’

‘Please stop giving me cause to.’

He watched the rest of it mostly in silence with the occasional snide remark. Then finally as Blake was finished bargaining in the souks and trying to charm snakes – to which Life maturely commented that he was a charming snake – he sat down in a café in Djemaa el Fna, the large central square in the old city and gave his final thought to camera.

‘Someone once said, the world is a book and those who do not travel, read only a page.’

Life groaned and pretended to vomit. ‘What a crock of shit.’

I was surprised; I rather liked that one.

Then Blake winked. I savoured the moment, my eyes glued to the final seconds of my time with him for this season; after this, all that I would learn about him would be propaganda from the Blake Party – if I ever heard from them again.

‘Do you think that maybe he left you because he’s gay?’ Life asked.

I ground my teeth together, fighting the urge to push my life off the stool. It would be pointless, it would be like cutting my nose off to spite my face and I was thinking about that when my life changed forever. The next shot was quick, so quick that any untrained eye could have missed it, but not my eye, not even my bad eye could miss it which had worse vision after Riley had blown a pen bomb – a ball of paper blown from the outer plastic shell of a pen – in my eye when I was eight years old. I hoped and prayed and wished on every lucky thing that due to my as yet undiagnosed but ever present psychotic tendencies, that I’d merely imagined what came next. The camera zoomed out and I paused and searched. It was her. There she was. Jenna. The bitch. From Australia. Or at least I thought it was her. They were in a busy noisy café, at a table piled high with mounds of food with at least a dozen other people. It looked like the Last Supper. I hopped off the stool and moved closer, stood right up at the screen. If it was her, it would be her last supper.

‘Hey, the carpet,’ Life said.

‘Fuck the carpet,’ I said, venom in my voice.

‘Whoa.’

‘The little …’ I paced up and down before the screen, watching their frozen toast, their glasses pushed up against each other suggestively, both looking into each other’s eyes, or at least her at him and him at something over her shoulder, but still in the general direction. ‘Bitch,’ I finally said. I played it again, watching their toast, rewound it and watched it once more. I examined their shared look: yes, they definitely looked at one another as their glasses clinked, did that mean something? Was it code? Were they secretly silently saying to one another, Let’s you and me clink tonight just like we did on the top of Everest? The thought made my stomach heave. Then I analysed their body language, and then even looked at the food on their plates; they had shared a few dishes and they disgusted me. My heart was pounding, thudding in my chest, I felt like the blood wanted to jump out of my veins. I needed to climb through the television and into their world so I could break them up and ram the Moroccan meatballs down her throat.

‘What on earth is wrong with you?’ Life asked. ‘You look possessed, and you’re ruining the carpet.’

I turned around and fixed him with the most determined look I could muster. It wasn’t difficult, I felt it inside. ‘I know why you’re here.’

‘Why?’ He looked worried.

‘Because I’m still in love with Blake. And I know what my dream is, the thing that I really, really want, the thing that I’d do if I had the guts and didn’t care what anybody thought. It’s him, I want him. And I have to get him back.’