He gave me a half-smile. ‘Nothing stronger. The wine is good. Although I am in danger of being slightly tipsy.’

‘Go steady,’ I said. ‘Last time we got drunk we hatched this little plan, and look at you now. Halfway around the world with me.’

Patrick looked down at the toothpick he was flipping between his fingers. ‘We were married almost three years,’ he continued, and I could tell he’d really been building up to telling me. I moved my chair so that instead of facing outward I could be opposite him, resting my elbows on the table and giving him my fullest attention. ‘I loved her very much. She died two years ago, and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever lived through. Dreadful. And it was so dreadful I decided that I could either feel miserable for the next seventy years or somehow try to enjoy myself, as a sort of tribute to her. Mala. Her name was Mala. She was twenty-seven when she died, and …’

‘That’s too young,’ I sympathized. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘She was the most annoying person you’ve ever met,’ he remarked, his eyes contemplative and wistful. ‘She was bossy and headstrong and came from this huge Asian family that were always in our business, always having opinions on how everything should be done and the rule was that she could slag them off as much as she wanted but the one time – honestly, once – that I said something about them she didn’t speak to me for a week. She was so stubborn. She left stubble in the bath after shaving her legs and watched so much reality TV – I’d come downstairs of a morning and the bloody real housewives of wherever would be on and that’s how she’d start her day. I hated it. She couldn’t cook and was incapable of properly closing a kitchen cabinet and would sing these songs from Bollywood movies constantly. She was always talking, or singing, or watching other people talk or sing. There was nothing ever quiet about her. And I loved it. She drove me absolutely potty, totally round the bend, but she was my favourite person in the whole world and absolutely irreplaceable. And then … yeah. She died.’

He took a breath after speaking, as if the words tumbling out one after another had worn him out. He had tears in his eyes. He took another mouthful of his wine. ‘I really am drunker than I thought,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t say sorry,’ I replied. ‘I don’t even know how you’re functioning. That’s such an unfair, crap hand to be dealt.’

‘It was a car crash. An old woman who had no business still having a licence crashed into her on a dual carriageway.’

‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said. ‘Thank you for trusting me with this.’