‘Sounds fun,’ Mark said blandly.

‘It passes the time,’ Sean said with another cold look for me.

He gave me my drink and took Mark’s money and gave him his change, giving off a vibe of poorly suppressed antagonism the whole time. I hoped the pub would get busy quickly so that he’d be run off his feet and wouldn’t have time to glare at us. It wasn’t exactly going to be easy to enjoy a nice relaxed chat with Sean radiating hostility the whole time.

But then, to my relief, Sean seemed to give up. He took himself off to the other end of the bar, flicked through one of the papers and started doing the crossword.

‘Friendly chap,’ Mark said under his breath.

‘He’s usually all right,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s got into him.’ Though I had a pretty good idea what was up. I just hadn’t realised Sean liked me quite so much.

Mark asked who I was meeting and I told him about Karen, and gradually I became less self-conscious. It felt so good being there, talking to him, it was as if we’d always been meant to meet.

When we’d both finished our drinks he said, ‘How about another?’

‘But you’ve got a funeral tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t you be taking it gently? You know, having an early night?’

‘It’s only just gone six,’ he pointed out.

‘True.’ My stomach rumbled. ‘But I’m a lightweight. If I have another drink without eating anything I’ll fall over on the way out of here.’

‘Let’s go get something to eat,’ he said.

I said yes. Of course I said yes. I was hungry. And I felt sorry for him, and I fancied him rotten. Also, I was curious. Intrigued. I wanted to know more about him. About the funeral he was going to. The woman who’d betrayed him. He seemed so lovely, so perfect… why on earth would anyone do that to him? And what on earth could anybody else possibly have that he lacked? I wanted his story – all the things he might have told me if he’d learned to trust me, if I’d cut his hair not just the once but again and again, over months and years.

Karen would understand… wouldn’t she? I decided to ask Sean to let her know where we’d gone… if she ever showed up.

He was still busy pretending to be engrossed in his crossword and looked up resentfully, as if I’d just interrupted something important.

‘You remember my friend Karen, right?’ I said. ‘The blonde one who talks very fast, who’s going out with the bald guy with no neck?’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah, I remember.’

‘If she turns up, will you tell her I’ve gone to the pizza place round the corner? She’s welcome to join us.’

Sean raised his eyebrows. ‘Yeah, right. Sure she is. Who is that guy you’re with, anyway? Do you even know him?’

‘I’m starting to,’ I said.

As if it was any of his business! But then, he had a crush on me, so of course he didn’t like seeing me with someone else. He couldn’t help himself, any more than I could.