He nods again. It’s one of those prompting nods, the ones television interviewers give to encourage their interviewees to keep talking. But I’ve given all I’m going to give him. I don’t want to be one of his research cases. So we lapse into silence for a moment.

‘What about work, Lotti?’ he says. I’m not sure he’s really interested. In fact, he’s probably wondering why he bothered having this meeting. What did he expect to find? A buxom, sex-obsessed thirteen-year-old as I was back then, trapped in some sort of time warp?

‘Oh gosh. My work is very boring. I’m not really supposed to talk about it.’

‘Ah!’ he says, knowingly, with a wink. ‘That sort of work. Say no more. My lips are sealed.’

Again, silence is the order of the day. I can see he’s feeling uncomfortable, and wondering what to say. Whether to try to cut everything short. That’s what they often do, my dates. Once they realise I’m not going to be an easy fuck just because I’m a Plain Jane. And not just a Plain Jane – a Plain Jane with a facial deformity. It’s thanks to you fucking British that I look like this, I want to say. But of course I don’t. That would be rude. He’s fiddling with the menu now, turning it over and over.

‘What about something to eat? Are you hungry?’

I realise this is the tipping point. It could go one way or the other. I can back out now, bring it all to an end, we say our goodbyes, and wonder why we’ve bothered to spoil what was probably a special memory for us both from more than forty years ago. Or I can say yes.

‘Yes,’ I hear myself saying. ‘That would be lovely. The Eisbein with Sauerkraut and Erbsenbrei is particularly good here.’

He looks at me like a little lost lamb. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘My German’s not bad, but you’ve lost me there.’

‘Well you know what Sauerkraut is?’

‘Of course.’

‘So the dish is pork knuckle with Sauerkraut and mushy peas.’

‘Mushy peas. Great. A Hull delicacy – usually served with greasy cod and chips, but pork knuckle and Sauerkraut sounds much more appetising. Shall we go for two of those?’

*