We are a ménage à trois, living in a deeply low-grade flat in Fulham. Alexander, a hot young barrister, with an exquisite politeness that could make anyone angry, Bart an ex-Guards officer who shows early signs of a cholesterol problem and drives a minicab, and me, a med student. There is a cat in a cage and a bird that flies around. The barrister’s reasoning, which will one day make him a judge, is that the bird needs protecting, not the cat. We have no money. Bart has pawned his only suit and is wrapped in a green chenille bedspread. We talk about food and running away to be glimpsed years later standing on a railway station in Algiers. But we are stuck.