‘Do I have to ask, is that the only way to get any information out of you?’

‘I mean, I haven’t not-mentioned him, he wasn’t important.’

‘You haven’t mentioned him. I think if you asked most people, that would count as not-mentioning, wouldn’t it?’

‘Well, yes, technically, but you’re making it sound like …’

‘So what else have you not-told me?’

‘I haven’t. I mean I haven’t not-told you anything, about what?’

‘Let’s start with Ian, the mystery ex-boyfriend.’

‘Well, what would you like to know?’

‘When did you go out with him?’

‘Earlier this year.’

‘Oh I see, how early?’

‘We broke up in the spring, early summer, spring I think, can’t remember.’

‘How convenient. So he’s a recent boyfriend.’

‘Well, if you mean he’s the one immediately preceding you, yes he’s recent.’

‘And yet you haven’t mentioned him.’

‘Look, he wasn’t all that important.’

‘Do you make a habit of sleeping with men who aren’t important to you?’

‘No.’

‘So he was a little bit important then.’

‘Well, I went out with him for a bit, so I suppose so, yes.’

‘Did he meet your parents?’

‘Yes, once I think.’

‘Once or twice, you can’t remember?’

‘Once properly, twice.’

‘So he met your parents, you slept with him, he was important.’

‘Not that important …’

‘Not that important but you introduced him to your parents and you hid him from me.’

‘I wasn’t hiding him.’

‘Just not-mentioning him, even when you’d been talking to him right before meeting me, you still didn’t mention him.’

‘It really wasn’t an important conversation.’

‘So an unimportant conversation with an unimportant man but important enough to hide it from me. How often do you talk to him?’

Aha, I thought, another trump card. Matty was leaning across the table and looking at me and the intensity of his grey gaze was turning me on. I gazed back, quite deliberately, my eyes wide. I was as good at this as him. I would show him. ‘Actually, it’s the first conversation we’ve had since we broke up.’ So there.

A pause. Matty sat back in his seat, looked away, then back again, another tight smile. ‘So, you have your first conversation with your old boyfriend since you broke up with him while you are waiting for me and you’re laughing away, but you still don’t tell me about it?’

‘Matthew …’ Was this serious or not? Was he playing with me?

‘No, it’s fine, really …’

A very thin waiter arrived carrying two wide white bowls, modest heaps of spaghetti surrounded by absurdly broad rims. He lowered them in front of us simultaneously, with a serious expression, then said in a Fen accent, ‘Parmigiano, ducks?’