‘I know. And now we have. I’m glad.’ I smiled again.

Jasper and Mel were sitting opposite me. The food came, bowls of tom ka chicken soup, and Jasper politely waited until we had picked up our white china spoons before he began eating with obvious relish. He nodded appreciatively and dipped in his spoon again. Mel started talking about Thailand, saying that she and Jasper were thinking of taking a long holiday there. I couldn’t actually remember Mel ever agreeing to take more than four consecutive days off work so I must have looked surprised. Jasper enjoyed scuba-diving, she explained, and he wanted to try it in Thailand.

‘Mel would enjoy it too. Don’t you think she would?’ he said to me.

Mel protested, ‘I’m a city girl. I don’t do outdoor stuff, other than sitting on the beach. Anyway, I’d be scared.’

‘I will look after you.’

‘But I don’t need looking after,’ she told him.

They turned to smile into each other’s eyes and I understood how far things had gone between them.

It was true that up until now independence had been Mel’s mission statement, yet over our Thai lunch her face and all the lines of her body seemed to contradict it. She was doing it with humour and a twist of self-deprecation, but she was still offering herself to Jasper. She didn’t need his care, or resent its availability. She just acknowledged his capacity and willingness to take care of her, and accepted it with grace.

Seeing it was like watching an entire romantic epic condensed into a five-minute playlet.

I thought that Jasper shrewdly took all this in, and his pleasure in it and in Mel herself was healthily touched with natural amusement. I guessed that Jasper was an optimist, one of those lucky souls who would always find joy in his surroundings.

‘I’d forgotten that. Thanks for the reminder,’ he said.

We all laughed now, and went on eating our soup. There was a sharp smell of lemon grass and hot peppers. It was sunny outside and light filtered through the windows of the café past glass vases of sprouting bamboo wands. The shadows of leaves stippled the wood floor and the scrubbed tables were decorated with rainbows that fell through the prisms of our water glasses. The tables were pleasantly full but not crowded and there was a low hum of conversation. The margins of Mel’s linen top and Jasper’s shirt softly fuzzed in the sunlight and I felt a flow of warmth towards the two of them. They were in love, and this seemed simple and at the same time magnificent. I was happy for their happiness and I thought, ‘They’ve found each other. It seems so easy and logical, now it has happened.’

‘And you, Sadie?’ Jasper asked. ‘What about you?’