The sea was at my back – a giant canvas – roaring – suddenly roaring, and I drew my strength from it, from its implacable grey magnitude, from its infinitely animated deathliness. I clenched my hands until the nails cut into the soft flesh of my palms, then I opened my mouth and started to speak.

‘My mother had been very ill, for months, with pneumonia—’

‘Hang on a second …’ Mr Huff interrupted, then winced, then slowly lifted his hand to silence me. ‘What if I don’t actually want you to justify yourself, Miss Hahn?’

‘Sorry?’ I blinked, taken aback.

‘I don’t want you to,’ Mr Huff repeated, ‘justify yourself.’

‘Why ever not?’ I demanded, irritated.

‘Because … because I’m in love with you, Miss Hahn, and when a person loves someone – as I love you …’

‘Yes, yes, you already said that,’ I snapped.

‘When a person is loved by someone,’ he reiterated (much to my evident dismay), ‘they shouldn’t ever feel the need to justify themselves.’

‘But I do feel the need, Mr Huff!’ I scowled.

‘But what about me, Miss Hahn?’ he asked.

‘You?!’

‘Yes. Me. What if I don’t want any of my questions answered? What if it’s all about my simply accepting everything? Everything as it is. And you. Accepting you. Exactly as you are. Flawed as you are. Faulty as you are. Warts and all.’

‘Warts and all?’ I echoed.

‘Precisely.’

I pondered this for a while.

‘You’re being very unhelpful, Mr Huff,’ I said, finally.

‘This is love, Miss Hahn.’ Mr Huff shrugged, airily. ‘Love is rarely predicated on things like …like …’ – he rolled his eyes – ‘like “helpfulness”.’

‘Now you’re just being ridiculous!’ I exclaimed, throwing up my hands, infuriated.

‘Don’t throw up your hands like that!’ Mr Huff cringed.

‘How can it be love,’ I continued (ignoring him), ‘when there isn’t any … any connection or … or exchange, or understanding?’

‘But surely they say love is “beyond understanding”, Miss Hahn!’ Mr Huff smugly quoted. ‘Which is precisely my point.’

‘Love is entirely about understanding, Mr Huff!’ I all but shouted. ‘You idiot!’

‘Why always so … so coarse, so loud, Miss Hahn?’ Mr Huff covered his face with his hands. He was quiet for a while and then, ‘There’s something so deeply …’ – he pondered for a second – ‘so deeply unedifying about a person’s need to unburden. It’s the modern disease, Miss Hahn. And in fact your determination not to – not to – unburden hitherto has been an essential part of what I’ve always found so … so deeply attractive about you. Your independence. Your self-reliance. Your … your enigmatic silence.’

‘Well an essential part of what I’ve always found so attractive about you, Mr Huff,’ I tartly responded, ‘has been how strangely irresistible you seem to find your own utterly fatuous opinions!’

(Yes! And this was actually true!)

Pause.

‘You find me attractive, Miss Hahn?’ Mr Huff slowly dropped his hands. He looked surprised. ‘Is that what you just said? That you find my … my confidence attractive?’