I laughed. "Not even close. Why would we go into town to get back to the coast, Mr Seashore Man? Follow me." I vaulted, rather neatly, I thought, over the low sea wall to the beach, and brushed off my hands on my jeans. After he'd followed suit — almost as neatly — we strode off along the beach together, into the gently gathering gloom.

I'm not entirely sure we needed two bottles of wine at supper, one with the prawns and one with the steak, but, as is so often the way when you first meet someone and sit down to break bread together, it oiled the wheels. I was also quite pleased to see he seemed — not nervous, that's the wrong word — but as apprehensive as I was. Not a seasoned dater, I'd hazard. For a date, I'd realized as I sat down, this surely was. At Peter's age, and for some years beyond, the same scenario can easily be interpreted as a casual supper with a new mate. But when two people of a certain age sit opposite each other at a small table, so small their knees are almost touching, in a candlelit, crowded restaurant — he'd clearly booked — and share their past, their checkered histories, and are open and frank with one another about their mistakes, their disappointments, their failings, as well as their successes and sources of happiness, it comes under a more intimate heading. On the success and happiness front we both reaffirmed that we'd been lucky enough to have fulfilling, absorbing careers that we adored, and whilst I admitted mine had occasionally given me an excuse to withdraw from the evolutionary struggle, he told me his had very definitely contributed to the break-up of his marriage.

"Jilly asked me one morning, as I set off for the Summer Isles for the third time that year, if I preferred them to her."

"Oh. And?"

"I had to admit, I did. She said she thought she should leave and waited for me to say , ‘Please don’t.’ I didn't exactly pack her bag but I certainly didn't dissuade her. And I remember feeling . . ." he hesitated.

“Relieved?"

"Yes, relieved. When she left. Sobbing. Awful." He did look thoroughly ashamed as he wiped a chip gloomily around his plate.

"Not awful, you can't help how you feel. I'm sure Hugo felt exactly the same when he finally told me he was leaving me for Christina. And I'm not convinced she should have asked you to choose like that. It's not an either/or situation."

"Except I was secretly pleased she'd made it one. And she knew I was. She was the one with the courage, eventually."

"Ah. Yes. I see. And I wasn't. I knew, too, you see. And I didn't give Hugo an out."

"You had a baby."

"Not when I knew for the first time, I didn't. When he first met her." Sailing across a river on a rope. Wide smile.

"Oh. Right."