I turned back to the house and started. Someone was standing a few feet away from me. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘You don’t have exclusive rights to the garden, do you?’

‘Why do you always have to be so aggressive? I’m not in the mood tonight, OK?’

Owen shrugged and struck a match; his face flared into view as he held it up to the cigarette between his lips.

‘Can I have one too?’

‘You don’t smoke.’

‘I do, sometimes.’

‘Here.’ He held out the packet but I stayed where I was, so he was forced to cross the patch of grass separating us. He shook out a cigarette, handed it over, then lit it for me.

I felt a violent thrill of hostility towards him. ‘You won’t mind, anyway,’ I said, breathing a curl of smoke into his face.

‘Mind what?’

‘Leaving.’

‘It’s a pain, having to find somewhere new.’

‘You’ve hardly made an effort to be part of the house, have you?’ I continued. ‘You don’t see us, do you? You don’t notice when we’re there and when we’re not. We could be anyone. There are days when I can’t remember you even saying good morning or goodnight, let alone “Do you want coffee?” or “I’m going to the shop, is there anything you need?”’

‘I’ll try to remember.’

‘Don’t bother.’

He dropped his fag end and it winked like a small red eye between us. I threw mine after it. Then he put one hand against my stomach and pushed me so that I stumbled backwards. He stepped after me and pushed me once more. Now the tree was sharp against my back. I slapped his cheek and in the half-dark saw him wince. Good. He bent forward and kissed me hard. I reached up and put my hands in his thick hair and pulled him closer, tasting blood, his or mine I didn’t know. Layers of clothing coming loose, buttons snapping, zips torn apart, teeth on skin, hands on each other’s body, breath in gasps, muttered curses.

‘Not here,’ I said.

‘Why not?’ he said.

I couldn’t think why not. Couldn’t think. Now we were on the rough ground, pushed up against the fence at the back, pricked by thorns and bits of bark. It was messy and undignified. He had to tug my jeans off, and then he was against me, inside me, and all the bits of my body I’d thought were healed hurt again. Every bruise throbbed. His eyes shone in the night.

‘I don’t even like you,’ I said, when at last we rolled away from each other.

He didn’t speak for a moment, just lay with his arms outstretched, staring at the sky. Then he got to his feet, tucking his ripped shirt into his jeans.

‘Goodnight,’ he said, standing over me where I lay with my undone clothes and my battered body. ‘Or is it good morning?’

And with that he was gone. I waited a few moments before scrambling up and leaning against the fence, touching my puffy lips with the tips of my fingers. Then I, too, went indoors, into the silent, sleeping house. Owen’s light was already out when I crept up the stairs. I tugged off my clothes, washed myself in the basin, trying not to see my face in the mirror. I tumbled into my bed, and waited for sleep.

I don’t know what woke me. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t bothered to close my curtains, and I could see from where I lay that the sky was already getting light. Birds were singing violently outside. I turned my head and saw on my mobile that it was five o’clock. I closed my eyes again and willed myself to sink back into sleep, but it was no good. I remembered the previous night and felt heavy and sick, consumed with desire.

I swung my legs out of bed, pulled on my dressing-gown and opened the door. Not a sound from the house. Everyone was sleeping. I tiptoed along the hall, turned the handle of Owen’s door with an agonizing click. He was lying with the covers pushed down to his waist and one hand dangling over the edge of the bed. I closed the door softly behind me and crossed to him. He didn’t stir, until I climbed into the bed beside him and pulled the thin duvet over our two bodies and kissed his shoulder, his neck, his stomach. He gave a small groan but still kept his eyes shut and didn’t speak. He turned on to his side and slid a hand between my legs. The belt of my dressing-gown tangled between us and I wriggled out of it and threw it on the floor. We were very quiet. I put a hand over his mouth when he came.

‘You haven’t even opened your eyes,’ I said.

‘Perhaps you’re not who I think you are,’ he said. I rolled off the bed and pulled on my dressing-gown. He opened his eyes at last and looked at me. ‘And I haven’t even seen you naked, Astrid Bell.’

‘Nor will you. This is such a bad idea.’

‘It isn’t an idea at all,’ Owen said. He put out a hand, ran it up my leg, and I shivered helplessly.

Chapter Seven

‘That’s such a nice jacket,’ said Orla.

‘Oh, thanks,’ I said. ‘I just wear it for my job.’

‘You a photographer as well?’

‘I’m a bike messenger,’ I said. ‘I’m being Owen’s assistant for the afternoon. Carrying his bags and holding up the silver umbrella.’

‘Where’d you get it?’

‘The jacket? Another rider gave it to me,’ I said. ‘He was from Poland. I think he got it there.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Owen, with a nasty politeness. ‘We haven’t really got much time.’

‘It’s great,’ said Orla. ‘ Poland?’

‘I think so. Perhaps we should get on with the shoot, though. As Owen said, we are running a bit -’

‘Is there a toilet here?’ asked Orla.

Owen looked at her. His expression didn’t change but I saw him clench his fists. ‘Outside and up the stairs,’ he said.

‘Ta.’

Orla – allegedly one of the ten most promising young actresses in the UK – scampered out of the studio, pulling the door shut behind her with a loud bang. Owen rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and wandered over to the small window that gave out on to the street. He leaned his head against the pane and closed his eyes.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

‘What in hell am I doing here?’ he said.

‘It’s not that bad. It’s going to be fine.’

‘The picture editor wants “vivacious”.’

That morning, Owen had phoned me as I was cycling past King’s Cross and asked me if I would help him out. He didn’t ask me very politely and he made no reference at all to the fact that in the past few hours we’d had sex twice. ‘Say “please”,’ I said sweetly.

‘Please,’ he muttered.

I told myself it would be a change from delivering packages, anyway, and called Campbell to inform him that I wouldn’t be available for the afternoon. As a last-minute stand-in, Owen had been commissioned to take a portrait for a feature on young British talent. Nineteen-year-old Orla Porter, rake-thin, pasty and pouty, had been the star of a TV soap I had never seen and she was apparently about to become famous in a film that hadn’t come out yet. But she wasn’t a real star yet. She didn’t have an entourage, a press representative, a makeup artist. She had just shown up at Owen’s friend’s studio and said she had to, absolutely had to, leave by four. And she hadn’t looked vivacious once, except on the subject of my jacket.

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I see. Vivacious. I see.’

‘She looks depressed,’ said Owen. ‘Depressed and ill. She looks like a rubber band. There’s no life in her. I hate jobs like this – artificial photographs of fake celebrities wearing too much makeup and too few clothes, who’ve been spoilt rotten by attention but who’ll get dumped next season. Look at the pages of the magazines – these women all end up looking the same. You can hardly tell them apart. And that’s what everyone wants. They don’t want a real photograph. It’s just a con and I’m part of the whole stupid process.’ He turned away from the window and faced me. ‘Why the fuck am I doing it?’

‘For the money?’

‘Yeah. Money.’ He snarled the word at me, as if it was an obviously bad thing.

‘What’s the problem? Don’t take yourself so seriously, Owen.’