He rose and left the room, returning a few seconds later with a pair of trainers. He sat on the edge of the bed again. While he did this, I sneaked a glimpse at the photograph, which I had returned to the windowsill angled towards me. Matty and Helen had their heads tilted towards each other. They looked happy. There were a lot of questions I would have liked to ask at that moment. How did it end, did you finish with her and how did you do it? How long ago? Last year’s model … does that mean she lives in Peterborough, or elsewhere? Why do you still have a framed photograph of her on your windowsill? And – most importantly – are you still in touch with her?

He had bombarded me with questions over spaghetti – but that way round was okay, apparently: it made him passionate and keen. If I asked a lot of questions like that, it would make me insecure and clingy.

Matty left the room again, came back wearing a leather coat and holding his work jacket in his hand, the other hand pushing into the pockets for keys, phone, wallet. I felt a sudden ache, then, as he bent to re-lace his trainers, tightening them each with a sharp tug – a great yearning for the kind of ease I felt with women friends, the conversations you can have with them when you just say what you are thinking without worrying that this woman might not want to be your friend if she cottons on that you really like her. Was it unreasonable, to want a man but to want him to be like a woman friend? I desired male bodies but I wanted female minds.

I suspected that dividing men and women up like this did not reflect well on me, was a failing of some sort. How would I feel if a man had said something similar but in reverse?

Matty sat upright and clapped both hands on both knees. ‘Right, let’s go. Don’t want to miss the trailers.’

I was still holding the coffee mug between my hands. I took another sip, then put it down on the windowsill next to the framed photograph. I wanted him to see them both together, later. I wanted him to pick up my mug, half full with cold coffee, and see that the white rim of it was smeared with the unmistakable print of my beige frosted lipstick – a colour he had complimented last time we met. I wanted him to be reminded of me as he put the photograph back in its rightful place, as he looked at Helen. Maybe, if only subconsciously, he would make the comparison. I was the new thing. I had the upper hand.