He’s staring right at my left cheek again, but instead of saying ‘Shut up!’ or ‘Don’t be stupid!’, I decide to say ‘Thank you’ as I really really want to believe he means it, and he smiles at me as though that dress is just slipping off and flying clean away and I am already in his bed, which is where I want to be, all my rough edges cloaked in desire and magic and the mystical and the conundrum that is this man, Salvi Russo. I want him and I want him to want me. My choice.

A breeze is picking up, in the courtyard – edges of tablecloths are being lifted; hems of dresses are fluttering. I look up and there are some frayed clouds in the sky now, drifting in apparent innocence across the azure oblong ceiling above us. The starters are cleared away and the main course appears. I try a tiny bit of the steak and it’s delicious. The half-shade in the courtyard is slowly creeping over tablecloths and cutlery and faces now – a stealthy eclipse. It sweeps like a monk’s robe over the courtyard until the whole of it is engulfed and our table, too, is in shade.

‘Oh, no more sun,’ says Salvi, looking incredibly disappointed.

‘Yes.’ I exhale slowly, so relieved the sun has disappeared behind a scud of grey cloud. We used to cloud watch, Angela and I on sunny days, except I was always doing the reverse: hoping a bundle of cotton wool would block the mocking yellow circle that highlighted the worst of me all too clearly.

‘Do you want the rest of that?’ Salvi asks, eyeing my steak.

‘No, you can have it.’

Salvi slides his plate over and I plop the remainder of my steak, raw and bloody, on to it. The sky continues to darken and one corner of our tablecloth flips up on to Salvi’s plate and immediately soaks up a little of the blood puddled there, as he eats.

‘Can I come back to yours after this?’ I ask. The blood seeping up the white of the tablecloth has almost reached his little finger. There is a crash and the tinkle of glass behind us, accompanied by an ‘Oh fuck, Jeffrey!’ from a Patsy Stone blonde in a jade two-piece – the rising breeze has toppled a champagne flute off a neighbouring table. It’s almost dark now in the courtyard, cool and delicious and dark.