My phone chimes with a text. Salvi? He’s going to be late, isn’t he? Or he’s not coming at all. Disappointment stabs at me. I hurriedly check my phone but it’s not Salvi, it’s Kemp.

Hi, is this still your number or am I texting a complete stranger?

I stare at the text for a few seconds then bash out a reply. Well, I might as well reply, while I’m waiting. What does he want now?

Hi, yes it is.

Good! I finally upgraded from the Nokia, you’ll be pleased to know!

Well thank god for that! That thing was an embarrassment!

Lots of my things were, according to you. My hat, my taste in music.

Well, that was dreadful, I think. Rock ballads and Sade.

My batik wall hanging …

He adds a smiling-face emoji.

Ha! I respond. I’m not feeling very Ha!, actually. I’m being stood up, probably.

Anyway, let me know if you want to catch up properly.

There’s a rattle and a loud clank behind me and the door next to the shutters slowly opens and a man hurries out, a hipster type: huge beard. I shove my phone back in my bag. The door hangs open, creaking on its Dickensian hinges. Do I carry on standing out here or do I go in? Is Salvi actually already in there, even though I was five minutes early?

I decide to go in and wait for him. I open the door and enter a short dark corridor, more like a tunnel, with moist walls and a weird smell: a combination of beer and beard oil, probably. At the end of the tunnel are six stone steps down to an archway and a podium with a stunningly beautiful girl standing behind it.

‘Sorry, love.’

Someone pushes past me, a man in skinny jeans and a tight royal-blue jacket. His eyes alight on me fleetingly, then look away. I step up to the podium and find a list that’s being checked with the tapping of a shell-pink nail is far more worthy of attention than I am. I haven’t even been stood up yet but I can already feel my self-esteem scuttling back up the tunnel and into the light of the evening, like a rat. Eventually, ‘Can I help you?’ asks the beautiful girl. She looks like a brunette Bridget Bardot and has eyes like sapphires and smooth, smooth cheeks. She also looks like she has a gone-off haddock under her nose. Am I not the right look for this place? Too Dickensian for the aesthetics, despite the thick make-up I thought I was safe behind …? Am I Smike?

‘Well, I’m waiting for someone, but I’d like to wait inside, if that’s OK.’

‘Is there a table booked?’

‘I don’t know, maybe.’

‘Name? Who are you meeting?’

‘Salvi Russo?’