‘Shhno. Wut zzzz yoo dup shnul frintl?’

Petroc pauses with a piece of lettuce speared on his fork. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t catch that. Your diction leaves a great deal to be desired.’

‘Sorry.’ I swallow. ‘So, what’s your made-up Astral1 intel? What do the big streamers want?’

He lances an olive pensively. ‘They want stuff that’s bold? Ground-breaking?’

‘Empowering? Candid? Raw?’

‘Good, good. Keep it coming, I’ll take notes.’

‘Bring us the ideas you wouldn’t take to anyone else, because they’re too chicken-shit. Let’s blow up the moon. Get Ricky Gervais to push the button.’

‘Think bigger. What about Jupiter, and James Corden?’

‘Nice. Can you put in a call? We’ll pay thirty K per hour.’

We’re sniggering but it’s not funny at all because we have actual conversations like this, meetings where by the end of the hour you have a page of scribbled notes that say things like ‘Would Dame Judi Dench jump from space?’ and you feel tearfully despairing at the prospect of making an unmakeable big budget entertainment show with a national treasure for the price of an online short. Commissioners also have the ‘what if . . .’ devil at their shoulder, but he’s more of a sadistic puck who says things like ‘What if we made a scale model of the Eiffel Tower, but with cheese? And what if we made Joanna Lumley eat it? Or Nigella put it in a fondue? Come on, I’m just riffing.’

‘Humph!’

I’m laughing and chewing, and when the noise cuts through our chat, initially I don’t hear it, or it doesn’t register.

‘Give me a life-endangering celebrity journey! Someone world-famous who’s never been on telly before. Must have a regional accent, and travel by camel.’

‘Just sitting there!’

‘I want Prince Harry to parachute into a volcano.’ Petroc’s still going, but there’s a robotic tone to his voice now, as he tunes in.

‘Butter wouldn’t melt!’

Still holding my Special like a priceless artefact, albeit one I’m in the process of destroying, I turn towards the voice. It’s coming from an old woman sitting next to us. Wearing too many layers for a summer’s day, she’s the shape of a slowly deflating balloon, and she’s glaring at us like we just gobbed in her soup. She definitely does not have a great vibe. For a second, I fret about what this means; maybe I’ve somehow offended her, she considers my unparalleled greed a disgrace. But then I realize her little jackdaw eyes are directed towards Petroc. What’s wrong with him? The salad is a disappointing choice, certainly, and I guess eating with a dog in your face might be considered unsavoury. But I can’t really see what that has to do with her. Picking at his leaves, Petroc now has a pink tinge to his cheeks as the woman rambles on.

‘Shoving his politics in our faces!’

I put down my burrito and lean forwards. ‘Sorry, what’s wrong?’

‘Leave it,’ murmurs Petroc, determinedly jabbing at his meal.

She sniffs. ‘Him and his rainbow.’

Glancing back at my colleague’s reddening face, I notice the Pride pin on his lapel. He may be a disastrous judge of the property market, but Petroc has an incredibly individual and elegant sartorial style – he always looks beautifully put together and highly original, whereas I manage to make a mess of trying to look like everyone else. Today he’s wearing a checked purple suit, which somehow manages to be both outrageous and understated at the same time. It’s really quite a skill.

‘You object to rainbows, do you? I think they’re very pretty.’

‘Don’t,’ says Petroc, rubbing Lafayette, who growls.

‘We all know what it means,’ she sneers.

I was at a bus stop in Stroud last year, on my way to the train station after visiting my mother. Waiting next to me was a young man wearing one of those ‘La!’ T-shirts inspired by a TV drama about the AIDS crisis. Another group of lads were jostling past, and one of them called out ‘Fag!’ The young man didn’t say anything, just stared at his pristine leather sneakers with the same shamed flush Petroc now sports. And I didn’t say anything either, because I was scared of what they might do to me, and besides, I didn’t know what to say. But now I do, and I’m not scared.

‘I know what it means. I don’t think you know what it means.’

The balloon rapidly inflates. ‘How dare you?’

‘It’s an interesting question. I might ask you the same thing.’

‘Please,’ murmurs Petroc. He’s gone pale now, but I can’t really stem this flow because I don’t know where it’s coming from, or where it’s going. I just know that, like the rolling credits, it’s going to carry on.

‘I’ll say what I want, it’s a free country!’

I take another bite of my burrito. It’s so delicious. ‘And what exactly do you want to say?’

There’s a pause as she works out how to put it. ‘Great Britain’s not what it was.’

Chewing, I nod. ‘There we can definitely agree. There used to be slums, and people dying of scurvy and TB. Women couldn’t vote, and there were only three channels on TV.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

‘Then what do you mean?’

‘Clover, stop.’

With an eyeroll at Petroc’s interjection, there’s another inflation. ‘This used to be a God-fearing country.’

‘Again, I agree. Witches were burned at the stake. You’d have been toast.’

She bristles; she’s very bristly, in all senses of the word. ‘We used to have standards. There were rules. People knew what was what. Young folk looked up to old folk. They didn’t go off . . .’ She eyes Petroc. ‘Doing whatever they like, with whoever they like. No standards.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ She’s speaking a language only Lafayette can hear. ‘Try talking in the Queen’s English. I bet you’re a fan.’

‘Clover, please.’

But Petroc has faded into the background; it’s just me and this gouty old cow, staring each other down, willing each other to concede. So many times I’ve stayed mute, chickened out, but today I’m putting my head over the parapet and aiming fire. She swells once more, peg-teeth bared, goaded into breaking cover.

‘It used to be illegal,’ she spits.

‘What did?’

She leans forwards, beady little eyes gleaming. ‘Sodomy,’ she breathes, jerking her head towards my friend.

I take one more bite, then find my hands are moving of their own accord, lifting the burrito again, not to my lips but across the gap between our tables. I unroll it, emptying pulled pork, Mexican rice, chopped tomatoes, refried beans, grated cheese, shredded lettuce, guacamole, and a dollop of sour cream into her sagging lap. They really do pack in a lot of fillings.

‘No,’ moans Petroc softly, burying his head in Lafayette’s fur.

‘You!’ shrieks the old woman, hauling herself to her feet, jabbing with her finger like a witch cursing a wedding. ‘YOU . . . FAG HAG.’

I start to laugh. ‘I think of myself as more of a gay icon.’