I pushed the newspaper away and the radio came on with Sunday Love Songs.

“Oh, that,” I said. “Sorry, I’d forgotten. There’s nothing much to tell. Cory met Stella in passing, a few weeks before she died. She let him sketch her, and he turned the sketch into a painting, which is presumably what I saw at the wedding.”

Tom was full of questions: “So Cory Byrne is an artist?” “Did he and Stella only meet the once?” “Did they talk?” “What was her mood like?” “Have you seen the painting again?” To which I replied: Yes, Yes, Not much, I don’t know, and No, in that order.

Every time I shifted slightly in my seat, I could hear the unfinished letter rustling in my pocket. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d written to Tom in the early hours, but I remembered the general mood of it. I know I’d threatened to chuck in my job at K&G and try my luck as a love-addled poet.

“Any sauces?” said the waitress who brought our order to the table, but I didn’t hear the question till she’d gone. Tom asked for ketchup. I wasn’t hungry anyway—the bacon sandwiches were all crust and grease and bulge. I cut mine in half and laid the knife down. The bread was pallid and floury, and it put me in mind of Lady Caroline Augusta Fitzroy-Byrne.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m sorry about showing up like this, Freya. I don’t want you to think . . .”

“I don’t think anything.”

“We can still . . . We are still mates, aren’t we, you and me?”

“Yes.”

I managed a smile, because it was the least he deserved. One of the corners of the letter was poking out of my pocket, and I pressed it lightly, as if testing the point of a blade.

“In fact, I wrote to you last night.” Despite my gravity I had to laugh a little, because it sounded silly. “A proper, old-fashioned letter. Well, kind of. I never actually finished it.”

I took the letter out of my pocket and laid it on the tablecloth between us.

Tom raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“Can I read it?”

“I suppose.”

He wiped his hands clean and drew the page from under my fingertips. I resisted at the last moment, before letting it go. Tom’s manner was oddly reverent and careful, as if the paper might turn out to be something valuable—one of his beloved Raphael sketches in the original, perhaps, or a diagram by Leonardo da Vinci. I chewed my lip while he unfolded it and spread it out beside his plate.

“Dear Tom . . .”

“Not out loud!” I covered the letter with both hands.

“Sorry.”