I sat back in my chair. My dad had always been open with his students – he thought it was important for them to know his interests and passions. But he was private. He said there was a fine line between showing the kids the humanity of who you were and telling them who you were. He was strict in his avoidance of the latter. He felt that making himself too known to students was not what they, or he, needed. Which was surely one of the reasons this Facebook group existed – speculating on who Bill Dean was other than the man who had been completely focused on their education. How much of this message to Arthur would be to save my father’s pride, and how much was it to preserve his legacy according to me? I exited Facebook without sending the message and closed my laptop.

I unlocked my phone and downloaded Linx, which I’d done a few times since Christmas. I knew I had to ‘put myself out there’, like the worm on the hook Lola had talked about, but I was still too attached to whatever it was that Max and I had created together. Every man looked exactly the same: ‘Tom, 34, atheist, London, likes: reading, sleeping, eating, travel’ – it reminded me of the biology GCSE syllabus and being taught what living organisms need: ‘movement, respiration, reproduction, nutrition, excretion’. With every bland profile, I was reminded of a specific memory with Max. The playlist he’d made me called ‘Happy and Sad Men With Guitars’. The vodka tonic he brought me during every evening bath and how he’d sit on the side of the tub and talk as I washed my hair. The time he brushed the conditioner through it and he felt like my mother and I felt five and for some reason that nearly made me cry as I faced away from him, looking at the shower screen. Fucking clumsily while we were both still wearing jumpers after a long, cold walk along the canal – how we’d spent the last rushed mile telling each other in quiet voices exactly what we were going to do when we got back to the warmth of his flat. The thought of trying to replace that closeness with one of these anonymous organisms seemed an impossibility.

It was strange, to have all your screens finally fail you. I didn’t know where to get the delicious chemical hit psychologists always warned against – I couldn’t seem to feel it, as much as I clicked. Google wasn’t giving me the content I wanted, neither was Linx. Perhaps this was why Lola was always online shopping and sending everything back, like a retail bulimic – to feel something even for just a second. I fell asleep on the profile of a 5 foot 10 man called Jake who lived in Earlsfield and liked Japanese synth music.

On Monday morning, I was recipe-testing in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. It was a man who worked for an international delivery service holding a square parcel.

‘Hi, I’ve got a package for Angelo Ferretti on the ground floor. Would you mind taking it for him and signing for it?’

I glanced at the recycling bins, which had not been emptied by the binmen that morning because Angelo had filled them back up with black bin bags.

‘He actually doesn’t live on the ground floor, he lives on the first floor,’ I said. ‘With me.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes,’ I said, impressed with the ease of my improvisation. ‘For some reason people seem to get the ground-floor and first-floor flats confused. Angelo lives with me. He’s my husband.’

‘Oh right, okay,’ he said, handing the parcel over. ‘No need to sign then.’

‘Great. So, ring the first-floor doorbell from now on, if you have any packages for him. Don’t want to disturb the poor guy in the flat below.’

‘Will do, thanks,’ he said, walking away. I put my ear to Angelo’s door and heard nothing – he was out at work.

I went upstairs to my flat and into my kitchen. I pulled up a chair beneath the useless cupboard above the oven – too hard to reach to store anything for cooking – and opened its doors. I slid the package straight in and decided it was now the vestibule for hoarding all of Angelo’s packages. No one would ever know. I didn’t feel guilt or fear or even excitement – I felt a calm sense of justice. I was the building’s legal system now – I was the clerk, jury and judge. Someone had to be. I didn’t want to cause him any harm or distress, I just wanted him to feel as frustrated and confused as he’d made me feel. It was what he deserved.

Lola finally called me back the day before The Tiny Kitchen’s book launch, asking if she could take me out for a drink before the party. I wore a backless cream silk blouse and black trousers. She wore a skin-tight flared jumpsuit in fuchsia satin, with a high frilly neck and huge puffed sleeves voluminous enough to rival Henry VIII’s. There was a high, padded headband in matching pink on her head which looked like it had been swiped from Anne Boleyn. Large dangling pearl drops hung from her ears. I stood up as she walked in the bar.

‘Don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘Tudors Go Dating. A brand-new historical re-enactment reality show for those looking for love, tonight at ten on E4.’

‘I’m more dressed up for your book launch than you are,’ she said as she pulled me in for a hug. ‘Do you want me to change? Shall I go buy a plain black dress quickly?’

‘Lola, you’re always more dressed up than anyone, anywhere,’ I said, breathing in her overwhelming perfume as we hugged. ‘And that’s why we love you.’ We sat down and the waiter came over.

‘Dry Vodka Martini with an olive for her,’ she said. ‘And a Moscow Mule for me, please.’

‘Coming up,’ he replied.

‘Who’s going to be there tonight? Mum? Dad? Katherine? Joe?’

‘None of them,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be low-key.’

‘Oh no, why?’ she said, visibly distressed. Lola was a woman who referred to her ‘birthday month’ and its accompanying multiple ceremonies every year with no irony.

‘Katherine can’t leave the baby, Joe’s away for work and …’ I hesitated. ‘And I told Mum and Dad there wasn’t a book launch.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Dad’s often quite confused at the moment and I didn’t want him to say strange things and for people to pity him. So I just pretended there wasn’t a party for this one. Do you think I’m a terrible person?’

‘No, the opposite,’ she said. ‘I’ll be your mummy tonight. And your daddy. And your husband. And your ex-boyfriend.’

‘Four kinks in one. You’re multitalented, my girl.’ She laughed. ‘Now. Where have you been?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What’s been happening? I haven’t seen you since Joe’s wedding.’

‘Oh, nothing, really, just had some new stuff I’ve had to focus on.’

‘What new stuff?’

‘I’ll tell you another time!’

‘Tell me now!’

‘No, it’s your night!’

‘Lola.’

‘What?’

‘Tell me.’

‘I’ve met someone.’

‘What! When?’

‘A couple of days after Joe and Lucy’s wedding.’

‘Where?’

‘An event that my company produced. He was performing at it.’

‘Musician?’

‘Magician.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jethro.’

‘How old?’

‘Thirty-six.’

I was struggling to put together sentences – the day had finally come. I knew it would. Someone had realized how loveable Lola was. ‘Can I see a picture?’ Lola took her phone out of her bag and showed me her background screen. It was their faces pressed together, their hair wet with rain, their cheeks flushed with adoration and vitality, their eyes bright from cold air and morning orgasms. His face was sharp and Hollywood handsome, softened and anglicized with a blanket of freckles. His nose was narrow and reptilian. His red hair was cut and styled in a way that suggested an East London barber with a large Instagram following.

‘Lola, he’s gorgeous. Where are you?’

‘At my mum and dad’s. We went last weekend.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I know.’

‘Did they like him?’

‘Loved him.’

The waiter brought our drinks to the table and I grabbed the Martini from his hand before he had a chance to put it down.

‘So. Sorry, I’m just trying to get my head round this.’

‘I know.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘I was working at this event – big brand dinner and a DJ thing – counting the hours until it was over, when he came up and asked if he could do a magic trick on me. Which, as you know –’

‘You love magic, yes.’

‘Exactly.’

I sensed that now was not the time for me to put forward my case for magic being a thing that only prudes loved.

‘So, he blows me away with this card trick – you’re not going to believe it, Nina, the card I picked was in my handbag which was on my arm. He was standing a metre away from me! How did it get there?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And then he was like, can I take you out for a drink after this. And I told him I wouldn’t be finishing until one a.m., and he said he’d wait. So he waited – waited for three hours – can you believe that? Just sat in the green room with a book. Then at one, we went to this twenty-four-hour restaurant and drank loads of Sancerre and ate eggs Benedict. Guess what time we finished?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Seven a.m. We just couldn’t stop talking. Honestly, Nina, it was like something out of a Fellini film.’ Since when did Lola watch Fellini films? Or drink Sancerre? ‘And then we kissed on the bench outside and I went straight into the office!’

‘You must have been exhausted,’ I managed to muster.

‘I felt so awake. So alive! Then he rang my office at lunchtime and asked for my home address.’

‘That’s … full on.’

‘And when I came back to my flat that night, he was there on the doorstep with the ingredients for lasagne and a bouquet of lily of the valley because lasagne –’

‘Is your favourite meal.’

‘And lily of the valley –’