Jenny laughed and told me not to take things too seriously. I grasped her hand and I yearned to hold it for always and that is the way it was. I wanted everything to be this good, to remain this strong. I thought it was worthwhile mentioning that I didn’t believe in backtracking as a general rule, it was a theory that was burnishing in my mind, there were lots of things simmering in my brain. I went along with her laughter. I began to fix a salad, lettuce and ripe vine tomatoes and chorizo – fried until its juice was released on to the pan – a handful of feta cheese, diced into cubes. I put on the Orb and I opened a bottle of Malbec and for Malbec it wasn’t half bad. I could feel a twinge on the right-hand side of my head, an ever so slight pressure being relieved, like a valve, a tiny ping, a small blood vessel popping.

We sat on the couch to eat, the wine perched on the coffee table. I felt privileged to have a coffee table but it wasn’t something that I would have actually admitted to anyone. I had no ashtray on the table because I didn’t want Jenny to feel as if she could light up casually in the flat.

I wanted to make delicious meals for Jenny every evening. I wanted to fix calamari and not worry about the aroma of seafood in the flat. I wanted to make vongole and other things involving rocket and Pecorino cheese or Parmesan. I wanted the ladybird tattoo on her delicate ankle to be the first thing I saw jutting out from the bed sheets in the mornings. I wanted to lie close by her at night, her body cool, always cool – it was like she had bad circulation, but I didn’t mind the coolness, I could warm her up. I wanted a reason to pick up flowers for under a fiver from the girl outside Neary’s on a Friday evening. I would choose purple tulips. I wanted a reason to buy flowers. I didn’t think men could buy flowers just for themselves. I needed her things about the place – nail varnish and her sketchbooks and pots of paint. I wanted her collection, her myriad of stones and pebbles and postcards from the gallery shops that she collected for the pleasure of it.

I didn’t want Jenny to cower from love. I told her that I would bring her to Paris, the city that was so beautiful from dawn until night. The Pont Neuf – we could sit under it on a bench and we could touch our fingers casually almost, and it would feel tangible, our love.