As Patrick savoured his dessert, lingering over it to prolong the pleasure, I asked about his love life. He looked up at me and I sensed his hesitation: did he want to answer that question? Probably not. He was very much a modest man, the kind who doesn’t confide in others, not even his closest friends. He decided to turn the question on me.

‘What about you – what was your longest relationship?’

‘Me? I’d say … seven years,’ I replied, uncertain how long the relationship in question had actually lasted, since there had been several separations within it, little interludes, but overall I did think that, measured end to end, our relationship had endured approximately that long.

‘So you can’t understand.’

‘Why?’

‘Living twenty-five years with the same person is pure fiction for you.’

He wasn’t wrong about that. Although I felt I’d experienced the weariness and complexity of a long-term relationship, I couldn’t imagine how it would feel after spending so long with someone. I sensed from the look on his face that he was judging my love life in the light of my profession. It was typical of an artist, he seemed to be thinking, to have a series of lovers. Unsatisfied with this single cliché, he tried out some others. I didn’t dare tell him that, to my mind, he was the artist. To spend so long with one person, you must surely be an accomplished actor. (See, I can be sarcastic too.)

‘For all your undoubted talent, I don’t think you can imagine what I’m going through,’ he said.

‘But that’s the whole point of my project. Trying to understand the essence of a reality that isn’t mine.’

‘Why don’t you write about yourself? All writers do that.’

‘It doesn’t interest me.’

‘And you think what I have to say is more interesting?’

‘Yes. You just said it yourself. I can’t know what it’s like to be in a long marriage. So tell me.’