‘Shut up, Kemp! And you were getting lonely, on all these trips. Yes, you had the odd one-night stand, the odd short-term thing, but you were looking for some kind of effort-free on-tap booty call. Some convenient ever-ready shack-up. You thought I would say “yes”. You knew I was so ugly I would jump at any offer going. You knew how much I liked you.’ My face is hot. My anger is hotter. I know my voice is too loud. ‘Well, screw you; you never got to ask! I’m glad you never got to ask. Because I would have said “no”. And now you’re back again, like a very bad penny, and you’ve broken up with someone. You’re bored, you’re lonely. Are you looking for another easy booty call? Is that what this is? This “miss you” rubbish, this turning up everywhere? You’re full of utter shit, Kemp.’

He is trying to reach a hand across the table towards me. I want to jab it with the pepper pot. ‘Prue, you’re being ridiculous … and how much you like me. I didn’t know—’

‘I’ve got to go.’

I am standing up. I let my chair scrape back on the pavement with a horrific clatter.

‘No, you don’t,’ he says calmly. ‘It’s only half one and The Monastery’s only ten minutes up the road.’

‘I want to get there early. I need to get there early and … sort myself out. Sort my make-up out. And I’ve got a blister and I need to …’ What on earth am I even saying?

‘That’s a shame.’ Kemp is infuriatingly calm, gazing steadily at me in the face of my righteous rage and my overwhelming desire to flee. ‘I wish you would stay. I wish you would listen to me.’

‘I’ve got to go,’ I repeat, then after what seems like a slightly drunken (on my part), silence-weighted eternity, Kemp stands up too, pushing his chair back, and I reach for my bag and my glass – empty – tips over, heading for the salt pot. I go to grab it at the same time he does. His fingers touch mine and it would be like coming home, except this is not my home and could never be. Our friendship was a sham and whatever this is, today, is even worse. ‘Bye, Kemp.’

I lurch down to grab my bag from under my chair and turn on my unsteady blister-free heels and head off down the pavement, in my lovely buttercup-yellow dress, without looking back.

‘Bertie!’ he calls after me. ‘You’re always walking away! Always disappearing on me. I’ll see you soon, OK? And we can try to have this conversation again! I’m not giving up on you!’

‘Not if I see you first!’ I call back.

CHAPTER 30