So, mid-sentence, she stopped, leant across the table, pushing aside her plate. She put the tips of her fingers on his cheek. He didn’t move, sat quite still and never took his eyes from her. She traced the line of his thick eyebrows; felt how his hair was bristly velvet, springing back in the wake of her touch; followed the shape of his chin with the faint dimple in its centre, softly touched his lips. She drew his face with her fingers, taking her time. Then she sat back again, liquid with desire.

‘Tell me about Mary,’ she said.

‘Mary,’ he said. It wasn’t a question, just a word, an echo. She waited and he stared past her, his face wiped of expression.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to tell me.’

‘She wanted children.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘No.’

‘It’s not really something you can compromise over.’

‘No. So –’ He shrugged. ‘We called it a day.’

There really was something rather scary about him, she thought to herself happily.

‘And then she met David?’ she pressed him.

‘Three months later they were married and she was pregnant.’

‘Oh.’

‘She’s very happy.’

‘What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m happy for her, too. And I’m fine. You can’t plan everything in life. Things don’t work like that. Well: do you want pudding?’

‘I certainly do. That chocolate tart looks tempting.’

They ordered and then he said, ‘Right. Tell me about your children.’

‘Do you really want to hear?’

‘Yes. I like other people’s children.’

‘You’re not just being polite?’

‘No!’ He smiled at her at last. ‘It’s not that sort of evening.’

‘OK.’ She slid a mouthful of tart into her mouth and chewed. ‘The eldest is Sasha. She’s eleven now. Very pretty, or I think so anyway, with long light-brown hair that she wears in plaits; grey eyes. A bit like a storybook picture of a little girl, if you know what I mean. Very neat; you should see her room. Very serious, very responsible – she worries about other people. She’s a daddy’s girl really – she’s the one I worry about most now. It’s hit her hard. I don’t know what’s going on under the surface. She steals things. Lies, I think. Clem’s the opposite – small, fierce, strong, looks like a boy, considers she is a boy really. Picks quarrels with the whole world, and especially with Sasha and Aggie – Aggie’s three.’ She grinned and twisted her glass round by its stem. ‘Like Katherine, except Katherine doesn’t have tantrums or eat garden snails and jellyfish and whole bars of soap.’