Nodding her thanks, and while still masticating, she drank some more tea and swilled the lumpy concoction around like a roaming gob-stopper before downing it; what then followed was a tremulous release of wind, of which she showed no shame. I watched as she picked up the last slice of bread, rolled it into a finger and wiped the plate clean before popping it into her mouth. Her eyes roamed over to my plate, knife and fork lying at right angles across it. I pushed it towards her, twinkling, aware that I was once again emanating preternatural radiance. She scoffed, ‘What? Leftovers? Me? What do you think my name is?’ Before scooping up my discarded mushrooms and sucking each finger clean with a wet smack.

I had never before met a woman so utterly determined to be herself.

I cast my mind back to my father. He would have hated Jessie.

That alone was enough to make me want to cart her off to Gretna Green or Las Vegas.

From the time I started dating, I used to imagine each girl meeting my parents. No, worse, I’d try to visualize my father’s wedding speech. His best Burton’s suit, relatives from back home wearing cheap imitations of last decade’s fashions, confetti, supermarket champagne, Mum’s cholesterol-oozing wedding cake, everything. Could I see it? If not, I moved on. I guess Mum was just as hard to please. Deep down, no one would have been good enough for her son, but she never vocalized any objections.

If the truth be known, I never thought any girl could ever compare to her.

My father always wanted to find out if they were good enough for him. What would be his judgement, I worried, after the predictable barrage of cringe-worthy questions aimed at the unsuspecting interviewee? It just became easier to date passive, polite, pretty (which meant white girls or, if black, then light-skinned), safely professional (that is, no rival to his son, i.e., accountants, teachers, PAs), respectable, good provenance (What school did you go to? No, what primary school?), conservatively dressed, unimaginative, well, dullards. Rather like myself, I suppose.

Yet somewhere along this high street of relationships, with its, shall we say, takeaways, supermarkets, beauty parlours, pound-shop emporiums, cordon bleu restaurants, banks, libraries and designer boutiques, all of which I have known intimately, I gave up on both – marriage and love.

I became the kind of man who succumbed only to the carnal.

Now my father was gone.

I drifted back.

‘The winds are quietening down to an emphysematous wheeze, are they not?’ I said with mischievous flourish, just to watch Jessie pull a face and grunt, ‘Do me a favour, Mr Oxford English Dictionary.’

I moved my chair over to hers, took her hand in mine. It was hot.

Her garrulousness abated while she digested breakfast. I began to answer the questions I really wanted her to ask of me.