As the presenters listed out the odds for the human race – which were not favourable from what Angela could tell – her date made to kiss her. She turned away at the final moment.

‘Would you like to see a picture of my cat?’ Angela inquired, as a token of peace.

‘No,’ he replied, sulkily.

Without a further word, he stormed out of the car, slamming the door behind him. She watched through the windscreen as he ruffled his hair and popped the top button of his shirt, creating a bedroom look. When the young couple emerged from the restaurant, he stopped the boy and offered a high-five, as if to celebrate his incredible sexual success in the car.

Angela thought: I’m never coming to this restaurant again. Never again.

*

The restaurant was a basement, really, with a damp smell of impending disaster and a neglected feeling. The waiters hung around in stained vests, helping themselves to drinks from the bar. Music Angela had never heard before was being piped through the speakers: loud, explicit and full of pushy directions. ‘Get low,’ this music advised and the waiters obliged by limboing underneath the entrance to the wooden bar. Each limbo was followed by a supportive whoop from a fellow waiter.

When Angela and her date (fifty, fruit and vegetable man, one faded scar running across his cheek) entered the restaurant, one of the waiters embraced Angela like she was a cousin who reminded him of carefree memories from his childhood. Plaster and dust from the ceiling littered the abandoned tables. A sign, in sloppy teenage handwriting, read: ‘Only Dessert Available.’ At a table nearby, sat a shabby-seeming couple and their young daughter, sharing a single slice of chocolate cake.

‘This place is usually wall-to-wall sophisticated people,’ Angela told the man.

The waiters, out of unquestioned routine, threw them two dinner menus. Angela shouted across to them, ‘This fellow isn’t my date.’

Her date raised his head in alarm.

‘He’s more of a guest,’ she explained. ‘He’s employed in the local supermarket.’

The waiters ignored her.

‘It’s not always easy to recognise people out of their work uniforms,’ she said. ‘You look nice.’

‘How is the school coping?’ The fruit and vegetable man shredded his napkin nervously. He glanced at the waiters as if to find an answer to the apocalypse in their unruly behaviour.

‘The staff room,’ Angela shook out a cigarette, ‘is pure farce at this point.’

‘What do you get up to in there? I’ve always wanted to know.’

‘Talking. Rage.’