Then we studied the pudding menu together. Mel spotted it first and her face puckered with delight before she started laughing. She pointed the item out to me.

Pecan, almond and walnut pie (contains nuts).

Mel and I collected menu misspellings and absurdities. Lola maintained that this was very sad and middle-aged, but it was a source of innocent amusement to us and we didn’t care. The addition of this latest one helped us to forget the doubts I had raised by putting a wall round my past.

‘I’m going to put my nut allergy right behind me and have that,’ I said.

‘Split it with me?’

‘Done.’

While we ate our nuts we talked about the Government’s ridiculous plans for the tube, and about our respective jobs, and a film about South America that Mel had been to with Adrian, which I wanted to see. The restored rhythms of the evening were familiar and precious to me, and I regretted that I had caused any disturbance in them. Maybe some time I could talk to Mel about Ted and the way I grew up, and maybe even should do so. But not now, I thought. Not yet.

It was eleven o’clock before we found ourselves out in the street again. A cool wind blew in our faces, striking a chill after the warmth of the restaurant.

Mel turned the collar of her leather jacket up around her ears. ‘Call me later in the week?’

‘I will,’ I promised. I felt full of love for her, and stepped close and quickly hugged her. ‘You’re a good friend.’

I saw the white flash of her smile. And I could smell the warm, musky residue of her perfume. I couldn’t identify it by name, but I thought it was one she often wore.

‘Trust me,’ Mel said. ‘I do.’

She touched my shoulder, then turned and walked fast up the street. Mel always walked quickly. She filled up her life, all the corners of it.

I retraced my steps more slowly to the tube station. I liked travelling on the Underground late at night and watching the miniature dramas of drunks and giggling girls and hollow-eyed Goths and couples on the way to bed together. I never felt threatened. I even liked the smell of Special Brew and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the homely detritus of trampled pages of the Evening Standard and spilled chips. That night there was a ripe-smelling old dosser asleep in one corner, and a posse of inebriated Australian girls who tried to start up an in-compartment game of volleyball using a red balloon. Two gay men with multiple piercings looked on coldly, but the tramp never even stirred.