Hogans was all bar. Sweat and stale perfume, aerosol deodorant and pouting lips, girls poured into tight sequined dresses, and there was an undercurrent of English voices with all the hen parties. People still smoked in bars, the last of the glory days. Jenny was still on the red wine and I wondered how her thin frame was capable of what it required to sufficiently break down the alcohol. I switched to beer. The music was loud and her artist friends were beginning to feed off one another’s energy. At one stage Jenny went to the loo and when she came back she had a look on her face that suggested that she was no longer enjoying herself. I asked her what was wrong and she said that suddenly she’d felt a little bit sad and that it was most likely the wine talking and that I was to drop it. I did wonder if it had anything to do with what she had said earlier, about someone letting her down, but I didn’t pursue it. Instead, I entertained her with stories of my surfing antics and my love of the sea and she seemed to come back to me.

You’re lovely, I said.

I kissed her, this time on the lips and part of me was waiting for her to pull away from me but she didn’t. Instead she kissed me back and some smart artist friend of hers said, get a room. I ignored him and asked Jenny to come home with me, and, to my surprise, she agreed. And she kissed me as we pushed our way through the heavy set of double doors streaked with condensation and out on to the street.

We laid into each other that first night. Not only with passion but with tenderness. She told me that she didn’t normally sleep with guys she had just met. I believed her. If I hadn’t, it would have broken the spell. My flat on Camden Lane was a mess but Jenny didn’t seem to care. We drank all the drink I could find in my kitchen and, after that, she called it a night. She wouldn’t stay over so I got her a taxi. It was only as the car was out of sight that I realized I hadn’t asked Jenny for her number.