Julia Graham-Hammond wore a brown pants suit that seemed to be made of plastic. It wasn’t—it was some other sheer, rifling material, entirely professional. It squeaked when she moved in her seat.

‘You’re not a writer, are you, Mr Ferrugia?’ she said, screwing up her nose in a way that suggested being a writer was really being a pain in the arse, and that we would get along much better if I weren’t one.

I shook my head. I was twenty-five years old. As a child, I’d briefly thought I wanted to be a writer, but such ideas had long since evaporated.

‘No, I’m not a writer,’ I told Julia. She had ordered a pink wine I had never tasted before. It was tart, stringent, went straight to my head.

‘Originally,’ said Julia, carving a morsel off her veal scallopine, ‘I had wondered if it might be suitable for you to write a foreword to the poems. The child’s perspective. You know.’ She put a forkful to her mouth. ‘Not entirely in keeping with our agenda as a feminist press, you being a man and all, but the relationship is interesting, the mother–child relationship, I mean—it’s a relationship that deserves to be put back at the centre of things … But then I thought, well, this needs to be … it has to have the force of scholarship behind it. Hence Emily Platz. She has a reputation as a feminist literary theorist, lots of people interested in what she has to say.’ She smiled and chewed and put her hand up to her mouth as she spoke. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sort of thinking my thoughts out loud. I’m such a fan of your mother!’

‘Well, I don’t think I could write a foreword anyway,’ I said. ‘Because I wouldn’t have a clue what to say.’

‘I suppose you could start with why you sent us the poems?’ Julia said. She was like a bird, a smart one, beady-eyed. She put her hand across the table to me, but there was too much clutter in the way; her thumb connected briefly with my wrist.

‘I had to do something with them. I’m no judge of poetry but, you know, if they were good—as you seem to think they are—I would feel a bit of an arsehole if I left them to …’ I was going to say ‘the rats and mildew’ but fished around and came up with ‘…obscurity.’

‘Ah.’ She looked at me quizzically. ‘I understand.’ She withdrew her hand and clasped it with the other under her chin. ‘And the letters? Do you have any thoughts on them? I was thinking, a companion volume. I think it’s best to keep the two texts separate, you know, intact. Necessary to each other, but … separate.’