‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I say, feeling about twelve and smoothing the skirt of my dress over my knees. The waitress returns with the drinks.

‘Thank you,’ says Kemp. He helps her take the drinks and the napkins and the nuts off the tray and put them on the table. I sip from my rather large glass of prosecco.

‘It’s only our third date,’ I add. I’m playing it down. It’s our third date and we have kissed and I’ve lain in Salvi’s bed and he has told me I’m beautiful.

‘Ah, I see. Well, I hope your third date goes well, at two o’clock, at The Monastery. By four o’clock you might have fallen for him.’

‘It’s not the falling, it’s the getting up again,’ I say. I’m not really sure what I mean so I sip more of my prosecco and study a mark on the tablecloth until it is rubbed off by my forefinger and my annoying blushes disappear with it. ‘Anyway, how about you? Anyone on the scene since Linear Carina? Girlfriends, lovers, whatever?’

‘No, not really,’ he says. ‘I met someone on my last trip. Arizona. A woman called Sarah.’ Another one. I already hate her. Yeah, yeah, we’re just friends, or could be, but still … ‘She was OK, not … complicated enough for me, really.’

‘Complicated? What were you looking for, a Rubik’s cube?’

‘No, an onion.’

‘Onions again.’

‘I like people with layers,’ he says, and he is looking at me so intently I feel at least three of mine are in danger of dissolving and disappearing into the ether, which is disconcerting and very puzzling. ‘You’re an onion.’

‘Well, you don’t want me!’ I scoff, laughing just a little too loudly.

‘Maybe I do,’ he says quietly. And the look in his eyes makes my heart beat fast but my head knows with absolute clarity this is a trick. Some kind of huge and horrible trick. I give him my best ‘what-the-fuck’ look with a ‘what-the-fuck’ open-palm hand gesture thrown in. I mean, really, what the fuck?

‘You’re a surprising person,’ he adds. ‘And I don’t just want to catch up. I want to talk to you about a few things.’

‘OK …’

‘The first is to do with something your dad showed me.’

‘My dad? What are you talking about?’

Kemp smiles. A slow smile that reaches the crinkles at his eyes. ‘He showed me your paintings. When I knocked with Ryan again the other day – you know, when Ryan saw your dad about more research – he invited me up and showed them to me.’

‘He had no business showing you those!’

‘Well, he did. He wanted my opinion. They’re really good, Prue!’

‘Oh. Right. He shouldn’t have showed you.’

Kemp shrugs. ‘They’re really good,’ he repeats. ‘I took some photos of them.’