‘Oh Elena, oh no.’ Blake shook his head. ‘Elena is nothing.’

‘Wow, you really do have contempt for your conquests, don’t you?’ Sue said. ‘She is a person, you know, with feelings and a heart.’

Sue hadn’t meant to let the emotion seep into her voice quite as much as it had, and she lowered her gaze, embarrassed at revealing a little too much of herself.

‘Oh no.’ Blake reached out and briefly touched the back of her hand. ‘No, I mean, she isn’t really my girlfriend, she’s my cover. My PRs hate the speculation about my bachelorhood, so sometimes they hook me up with someone beautiful and we hang out for a week or two. It helps me maintain my privacy. She gets to raise her profile. Elena wants to break into acting and I don’t want my private life splashed all over the papers. So we help each other. She’s a nice girl, but there’s nothing going on between us. We watch a lot of movies and she watches me eat – she can drink me under the table, though.’

Before Sue could ask any more, two waiters appeared, each with a covered dish.

‘To begin, we have the essence of Christmas,’ one of the waiters told her, lifting the covers with a flourish. All at once Sue was breathing in pine trees, cinnamon, somehow snow on a frosty morning, even a fireside cup of tea. When the mist had drifted into the rafters, she was left with a tiny Christmas dinner, with perhaps a quail as its centrepiece, surrounded by micro vegetables, and a few drops of what she was sure Jack Hawkes would call ‘jus’. It look like dinner fit for a doll, and Sue couldn’t help laughing in delight.

‘You like it?’ Blake asked her.

‘I think it’s extremely silly, and rather wonderful.’ Sue nodded.

‘It’s nice to see you smile, Sue,’ Blake told her. ‘You know you don’t smile enough.’

‘How do you know?’ Sue asked him. ‘You’ve spent a total of about forty minutes with me.’

‘Call it a guess,’ Blake said. ‘I don’t smile enough either, I recognise the signs.’

‘Are you secretly gay?’ Sue asked Blake, the question coming out of nowhere. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask, but it’s just with the platonic stand-in girlfriend and the sadness …’

‘No.’ Blake sat back in his chair, and sipped his wine. ‘If I was gay I wouldn’t try to hide it, what would be the point? I’m just … waiting, I guess. For the right woman. And I’ve been waiting a long time, so maybe that makes me a little sad.’

‘But you’re in your forties already,’ Sue said. ‘Haven’t you met the right woman yet?’

‘Have you met the right man?’ Blake asked her.

‘Well, I’m married,’ Sue said, ‘I have three children and several dogs.’