There was a lot of over-hyped banter and I could sense us all beginning to relax with the wine. It was the second least expensive on the menu. Everyone was dressed in a way that was supposed to look careless – as if they hadn’t put much effort into their choice of clothes for the night, but I knew better. I had waited the guts of an hour for Jenny in her flat earlier when she was getting dolled up. By the time she emerged from her bedroom I’d drunk two cans of beer.

When we were ordering desserts I handed her a small package. She placed it on the table, unopened. She seemed more concerned with filling her glass with more red wine than she did with my gift. I leaned over her and asked her if she was going to open it. She said that she would later and I felt hot – like someone had slapped me. The waitress arrived with the tiramisu. Jenny’s portion had a lit sparkler in the middle. We sang a drunken ‘Happy Birthday’, some other customers joined in, and in that moment I felt pleased that I had gone to the trouble of letting the waitress know when I had booked the table that it was Jenny’s birthday. As the sound of our voices tapered off Jenny looked to me and she was beaming.

I asked her again to open her present.

She unwrapped the box and took out the necklace.

I couldn’t believe it – instead of putting it on, she looked at it for a second and then she placed it back in the box and put the box into her handbag. I had spent a considerable amount of time choosing it and I wanted some affirmation.

She said it was perfect but she was afraid that she might lose it and that she would wear it when she got home. In a playful tone, I suggested that there was actually more chance of her losing it from her handbag than from around her neck, but she insisted the catch might not be strong enough. I found that I couldn’t help myself pulling it back out of her bag and insisting on putting it on her neck.

See the catch is grand, I said.