It was still warm and very muggy, although it was nearly seven on the June evening – the sort of weather that makes your skin feel sticky, even fresh from the shower. Sara took the short walk slowly up Lewes high street, not just because of the heat: she was aware that she was literally dragging her heels. Pathologically unable to be late for anything, she still did not want to be the first to arrive.

As she walked, she heard the beep-beep of an incoming text. He’s cancelling, she thought, her heart lifting.

In the garden, Colin it said.

She smiled. Good start.

The evening light was buttery and soft, the sun still a couple of hours from setting, but the tea-lights had already been lit on the outside tables packed onto the deck, creating what might have been deemed a romantic atmosphere. Sara looked around for a single man. There was only one, the other tables full of chattering couples and groups. Grey head bent to his phone, Colin-the-radiologist sat by the wicker fence, facing her as she stepped out of the open pub door. She studied him for a moment. He was exactly as his photo suggested: slim, metal-rimmed glasses perched on a neat nose, hair trimmed short. He looked up and saw her, smiled uncertainly. All his teeth, she muttered silently, smiling back.

As Sara sat nursing the glass of white wine Colin had ordered for her and felt the familiar shyness she always experienced with men she didn’t know, she reminded herself how used she was to meeting people – albeit mostly women – and setting them at their ease in her work as a nutritionist. Clients came through her door nervous and in need of help, and her first task was to make them feel at home. This was different, obviously, but didn’t the same techniques apply? She could see Colin was anxious, his pale eyes blinking behind his glasses as he asked her a few stilted – no doubt rehearsed – conversation openers. For a while they groaned about the heat and the parking in Lewes – which was impossible and always roused strong feelings.

‘You said you live in Brighton?’ Sara asked, after a while and a good many topics that had died a death for want of a robust response. Like pulling teeth, she thought tiredly. There was a strangled quality to Colin’s speech, as if he wanted to talk but the words were bunched in his throat.

‘I’ve got a flat in Preston Park.’

‘That’s a great area,’ she said, although she barely knew it.

He nodded, twisting his mouth as if agreeing with her pained him. He seemed to be struggling with something dark that was at odds with his mild exterior.

‘Have you been dating long?’ he asked into the silence.

She smiled and shook her head. ‘First time. I nearly cancelled.’