Verity’s pale blue eyes widened, and she instinctively held her hand out across the table towards Ricky. He took it with great care, as though it was a fragile gift he’d been offered, before laying it back on the table underneath his own warm palm.

‘Would you like coffee, Verity?’ Ricky asked, seeing their officious waiter approach, and intercepting the request before the haughty tones of the waiter could put Verity back on her guard.

‘No, thank you,’ she answered, smiling nervously towards the waiter, withdrawing her hand discreetly to dab at her mouth with her napkin. Ricky nodded and asked for the bill, trying not to show his disappointment that Verity didn’t want to extend their evening. Once the waiter had left, Verity, showing yet again that she had become the sort of woman who took things into her own hands, asked Ricky with a nervousness that even a gin and tonic and half a bottle of wine could not disguise, whether he might prefer to have that coffee back at her place.

‘I know you’ve got an early flight tomorrow, so it’s all right to say no. I was just thinking that we might not see each other for an awfully long time … that is, if you want to see me again. I can see how it might be difficult … with the distance, I mean.’

Ricky was seduced once more by her candour, by her laying herself on the line, awaiting his verdict, her wide-open eyes so used to being let down. It was like looking in a mirror. There is nothing I’d like better than to have a coffee with you at your place,’ he said simply. He had only just found Verity, there was no way he was letting her go.

They took a cab to her little flat in Clapham, immaculately kept but with a cheerful splash of clutter in the spare room that reminded him of his own untidy study, and which made him feel instantly at home. He walked around the flat, looking at her books - romantic novels and Jane Austen- and her degree proudly displayed on the wall. He saw the photographs of her with her stern, horsey-looking parents, and of her on her horse, Brontë, that she kept at home. They had coffee and talked until the early hours, and this time Ricky did not need to present a flower, or to quote from a book of poetry, or to pounce manfully, to be able to hold his true love. He merely had to sit and wait, enjoying the rare pleasure of being himself. And when he finally had to leave, it was Verity who kissed him, shyly turning up her head as she walked him to the door, and she tasted of bitter coffee, sweetened with brown sugar. A grown-up taste that he came to cherish above English tea.

Of Sunflowers and Sunny Side Ups