But all that effort. The waiting, the trying, the wanting, the joining-the-dots in between. The pretty pictures out of something and nothing. My brain was – is – too good at spotting patterns. It’s not a million miles away from a certain kind of madness.

I tried to stay in control. I even sent him an email to Kelly accidentally on purpose one time.

Can we meet a bit later tonight? I have to file next week’s column early because of Christmas break XX

I wanted him to know I had an exciting work life.

Then I sent: Whoops sorry, not for you!

My stage management, my timing, was seamless – or so I thought.

He sent back: I figured. Good luck with the column x x

Years later, he told me he’d seen through it. That it was ‘a bit exposition-y’. That it was ‘the kind of thing he’d have done, years ago’. I was furious. I was fucked. It was acid. It was tragic. Because I know, deep down, beyond where it hurts, that I will never have that kind of frisson with anyone, ever again. It was like kissing a mirror – when the mirror starts kissing back. It is an invitation to drown.

For now, back to the salad days. The proses. The roses.

THE PATATAS BRAVAS

On our second date we went to a tapas place in Victoria Park. We sat outside and drank too-sharp cherry-red wine out of beakers. We discovered we were both trying to eat less meat, and were both scared of wasps. It was too romantic. I told him I was buying a house. He sat back in his chair and whistled. He said I’d done good, that he should probably buy a house, that his career wouldn’t last forever. I came from nothing, like you. I said: ‘My mother has money.’ I used her like a doubloon in my pocket, then. ‘She matched me for the deposit. We went fifty-fifty.’

‘Nice.’

‘She’s done very well, doing what she does.’

‘What does she do?’

‘You and your trishula will soon find out.’

He’d been taking photos of birds and butterflies. I remember those pictures, hung in his tiny flat, and later, in my house. The stained glass of a butterfly’s wing. The hard black crescents of swifts. He photographed bower-birds and the extravagant nests they made to attract a mate. The males collected coloured objects – usually blue – like magpies did, and made little gardens, bowers, to lure in a female. I suppose what surprised me the most was that I found them beautiful, and Art found them beautiful. So humans shared an aesthetic with birds. How odd, for two species to share an idea of beauty. I said as much.