‘That is good,’ Penny said as she chewed. ‘That might actually be worthy of the superlative. Where’d you get this?’

‘I can’t reveal my suppliers, I’m afraid,’ Francesco replied. ‘And anyway, you were saying? About your uncle?’

She hadn’t been saying anything, really, and yet she confided in him for reasons she couldn’t explain. Probably because he wasn’t prying, he was just chatting. It felt low-stakes. Just two people swapping tales.

‘He’s my dad’s brother, but my dad did a runner when I was a kid and so Davvy took in me and my sister. He’s more of a dad than my biological one, if that makes sense. I don’t see him enough though. I feel guilty about it.’

‘I think everyone feels that way about their family,’ said Francesco. ‘Especially chefs. We work such weird, unsociable hours. We live ghost lives in a lot of ways.’

Penny nodded. She was glad he understood. Francesco took the big board across to the table and she followed, pouring orange juice into tall glasses for them and grabbing cloth napkins from the credenza.

‘He does drive me crazy though, too – so don’t think I am a total angel.’

‘Crazy how?’

‘He’s forever on a campaign to get me to move up to Derbyshire to run his pub. Doesn’t understand why I don’t want the pressure of such a massive place. We fall out about it every three or four months, and then make up and don’t breathe a word of it until the next disagreement is due.’

‘You talk about him with a lot of love, though.’

‘Well, yeah,’ Penny said. ‘He’s a legend.’

Francesco tenderly chopped some tomatoes at the table and salted them after artfully fanning them out.

‘And your biological dad left?’

Penny didn’t typically offer up that information to people she was dating. It was private, and she knew men immediately leaped to the conclusion that she must have daddy issues.

‘My mum got secondary breast cancer when I was nine, and by the time I was ten she had died from it. I think my dad knew it was going that way, because he left before she passed away. I think … Well, actually, I don’t know what to think, because I haven’t seen him since. But in his spinelessness I got the best father a girl could ask for. I’d walk over hot coals for Uncle David. Both my sister and I would.’

‘But she travels a lot, you said?’

‘She does. She’s back all the time though, and we’ll all get together for my uncle’s husband’s birthday in a few weeks. He’ll be sixty-five and will milk every second of it. He’s brilliant.’