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On Friday night, Miss Camilla from the Duckling Room came round to mind the girls and earn some cash-in-hand.

Before she arrived, Coralie had given Florence her bath and dressed her in pajamas.

(Miss Camilla had been so proud when Flo had “moved on” from nappies.

She didn’t need to know she still wore pull-ups in the night.) Zora was lying on the sofa reading My Story: Suffragette .

“We’re off, sweetheart,” Coralie said.

Zora lowered her book. “What’s Daniel’s boyfriend like?”

“That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”

“Okay. Well.” Zora raised it up again. “Report back.”

Coralie straightened her back in a salute. “I will.”

···

Outside, the cold air smelled deliciously of other people’s wood stoves, pumping out fine particulate matter injurious to human health.

All week she’d been bracing for Adam to let her down and not come because of work.

But there he was, next to her. “I feel like we’re on an adventure,” he said.

“Bravely setting off to Casa Millennial —a whole new world.”

“You know, I was born in 1983,” Coralie said. “ I’m a millennial.”

“A geriatric one—no offense. Daniel’s a real one. What do you think we’ll find when we get to Amhurst Road? Another squat? A flat above a chicken shop? A sort of Sally Rooney scenario: thin brunettes eating a single orange, messaging each other about socialism?”

“I’ve read those books. I love those books! You haven’t read a novel the entire time I’ve known you.”

“Yes, but I’ve read about them! That’s called being cultured.”

“You’re a charlatan, a hack, an articulate Oxbridge fraud!” Coralie screamed as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground. “You’re everything that’s wrong with this country!”

Outside Borough Wines, Adam set her on her feet. “Let’s give them a little treat. Two bottles.”

They strolled up Amhurst Road toward the wide green space of Hackney Downs.

“Do we know anything at all about this guy?”

“The boyfriend?” Coralie said. “We don’t. Big Man, he’d saved the number as, all in capital letters.”

“Big Man,” Adam mused. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

To their surprise, the address Daniel had texted her corresponded to an entire four-story Victorian terrace. “Surely not,” Coralie muttered as she got out her phone to check.

They rang the doorbell and hovered on the vast porch.

A lantern turned on above them. The door creaked open, and Dan was there in a woolly jumper, shorts, and socks.

He looked pink-cheeked and princely in the extra-wide hall, in which a row of sconces was illuminated and reflected in heavy gilt-framed antique mirrors.

He stood back and gestured, aware of the dazzling effect. “Please come in.”

“Sorry…” Coralie embraced him. “What the fuck is this?”

“I thought we’d be dumping our coats on your mattress on the floor,” Adam said. “Not hanging them up in Versailles.”

“I don’t really know what Versailles is,” Dan admitted. “But you’ll love the house, Cor. It’s all old stuff, right up your alley.”

“Big Man,” Coralie said. “Big house.”

“Oh, I forgot I used to call him that. Being in love is so embarrassing. Please don’t call him Big Man, especially you, Adam. You can call him Ian—or Barbie, people sometimes call him.”

“I promise, Dan, I won’t. And who’s this?” Adam bent to pat a skeletal and ancient black poodle who tottered into the hall.

“That’s Madonna,” Dan said. “I’m glad you didn’t bring the girls, she’s terrified of children.”

“So she should be,” Adam said. “Hello, tiny one. You’re a sweet little thing, aren’t you?”

“Come into the kitchen, I’ve got some stuff on the go.

” Instead of leading them downstairs to the basement, where she’d expect a kitchen to be, Dan took them through the first door off the hall.

What would originally have been the vast double reception had been turned into a kitchen and dining room.

Wide wooden floorboards lined the entire space.

All the intricate cornicing had been kept, swags of roses and egg shapes and bows.

An antique dining table ran the whole length of the front room to the huge, shuttered bay window.

Dan saw her staring at it. “It had to be winched in.”

“You could cook me on a spit in that fireplace,” Adam said. “Enormous.”

The fireplace in what was now the kitchen had been removed.

Inside the chimney breast was a brass-knobbed range cooker with about eight burners.

The ceramic sink must have been a meter wide.

The standalone fridge was double-doored.

Over the kitchen island, a bronze pot rack hung on chains, loaded with pans of all sizes on sturdy industrial hooks.

“It’s like a fairy tale,” Coralie said. “A giant’s house. ”

“That’s funny,” Dan said. “Because—”

“Fee-fi-fo-fum!” came the cry behind them. An actual giant had entered, pulling a jumper down over his T-shirt. “Sorry, I was in the shower. Ian Barbagallo.” He lunged for Adam’s hand.

“Adam!” Adam said.

“She’s the important one,” Dan murmured.

“Of course, Coralie! Finally! Now you can tell me the story of how you got your name.”

“Oh—” Coralie started to say.

“But a drink first!” The giant strode over to a cabinet.

“We brought some, didn’t we, Coralie?” Adam darted out into the hallway and came back with his two bottles, now revealed in this setting to be only moderately nice or generous.

The giant ignored them in favor of his own, much better wine.

After a moment, Dan took them out of Adam’s hands with a murmur of polite thanks.

Yes, Ian was tall, and he was much older than Dan.

Fifty-five? He was almost bald, and what hair remained was shaved.

He was big, really big, with a physique like a held breath.

Coralie glanced over at Dan, tending to something bubbling in a pot, at peace with the world and his choices.

The cork popped out of Ian’s wine. He took down four cut-glass crystal goblets and filled them to the brim.

“Your good health!” He gestured at the chairs. “Please! Sit!”

Coralie and Adam obeyed. As Big Man strode over to deliver Dan his wine, they shared a long, neutral glance to convey their mutual surprise.

Ian was back. “Dan says you’re on the telly?”

“Sometimes, sometimes,” Adam said. ( Don’t say “For my sins,” Coralie silently begged.) “For my sins!”

“And what do you do, Ian?” she asked.

“Nothing.” From the stove, Daniel tutted. “I used to be in the talent business,” Ian said. “Now I just keep myself busy.” He appeared momentarily inscrutable. “Bits and pieces.” (What did he mean? Crime?) “What about you, Coralie?”

“Oh, I work for an agency,” she began.

“Am I going to have to ask again about the name?” He gave her a sudden and very charming smile.

If she started telling the story of her name, which she hated, and she was interrupted again, which she hated, she would start to cry, and the night would be a failure. “Oh—” she began.

“Dan?” Ian interrupted. “Don’t forget the radicchio or whatever. The pink lettuce.”

“I won’t.”

“I might just…” Coralie got to her feet. “Is there…?”

“There’s like, four,” Dan said. “Go to the one on this floor—you’ll like it.”

She escaped gladly. At the back of the hall was a big door with colored glass, probably leading out to the garden.

The bathroom was tucked under the stairs.

Inside, the black wallpaper had an intricate design of insects traveling between, perhaps pollinating, vaguely sexual flowers, all generously endowed in the stamen department.

The lighting was sophisticated and made her look beautiful.

But the full wall of photographs, framed and unframed, was surely what Dan had been directing her to—she inspected them from her position on the loo.

Big Man, back when he had hair, his arms around the Three Tenors.

With Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. With Madonna—the singer, not the poodle.

Amy Winehouse like a little doll. Rappers, girl groups, the Coldplay guy?

Alice , she WhatsApped urgently. Ask Nicky, does he know Ian Barbagallo? I’m at his crazy house.

By the time she’d washed her hands, Alice had written back. OMG. Barbie? Nicky says he’s a full recluse.

Nicky was himself extremely shy. If he thought Barbie was a recluse…

She’d been away from the table for too long.

She slid her phone into her pocket and returned.

Daniel was still at the stove, stirring.

Adam and Barbie were hunched over a platter arrayed with various cold vegetables: slim carrots, both orange and purple; the promised radicchio; half-moons of roasted delicata squash, the skin still on; courgettes quartered lengthwise with stripes seared on from the grill.

The men were hungrily dipping them into, and scooping them out of, a large bowl of yellow stuff: aioli.

“Yum,” she said. No one paid any attention.

“I just find that incredibly patronizing,” Barbie said.

“It’s the truth, I’m sorry to say.” Adam spread his hands. “It’s thoroughly irrational from start to finish. The sad fact is most Leave voters are the very people who will be hurt most by Brexiting.”

“You seem like a well-off guy. Author. The Times. Telly, and so on. You’ve got a home of your own, don’t you?”

“Not as big as this one.”

“But you’re still a homeowner in London; that’s top ten percent stuff. Have you voted Labour in the past?”

“I have. Obviously.”

“Then you were voting to pay more tax. Is that rational?”

Adam gave a quick laugh. “I suppose not. It’s about values, though, isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” Barbie said. “And it’s the same for Leavers. Unless you’re saying that only some groups of people get to live by their values?”

“Barbie,” Adam said, “I’m not saying anything. I have no thoughts. After this week, I’m officially brain-dead.”

“Here.” Barbie refilled his goblet. “This’ll help.”