But she didn’t move at all. She stayed beside him, breathing slowly with a glassiness about her eyes. She hadn’t interrupted once or glanced towards the door. ‘And are you still in touch?’ she asked him. ‘You and Uncle Patrick?’

‘No. It’s like I said, he wasn’t in good health, and he was never one for sending letters. It was only five months after I went in that he passed on. They told me that he got cremated, but I don’t know where. I didn’t even hear about the service. I suppose somebody somewhere’s got his ashes in a box.’

She squeezed his hand again. ‘Oh, Arthur, I’m so sorry,’ and it seemed as though a valve had loosened in his heart.

‘Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now. Besides, he knew how much I cared about him. He was shy about his feelings, but I never was.’ He lit another Woodbine, drank the leavings in the teapot. ‘Would you like some pudding?’

‘No. I think I’m full.’

‘All right. Let me have a word with Mr Peng about the bill, see how many pots I’ll need to wash.’ He was glad to hear her laughter.

‘Arthur, I can get this.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

He settled up with Mr Peng and promised he’d return before too long – and, yes, he hoped to bring the lady with him. There was something different in her manner when he got back to the table with their coats. A peaceful resignation in the way she looked at him, a fondness she’d stopped trying to conceal. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever talked so much in all my life,’ he said. ‘It’s funny – if you asked me now, I feel as though I’d tell you anything.’

‘Careful,’ she said, ‘or I just might do it.’

‘You’re a lovely girl to talk to, Florence. I do mean that.’

‘All I did was listen.’

‘Well, you make an art of it. Most people would’ve run a mile by now.’ He opened out her coat for her and she slid into it; his fingers glanced her neck as they released the collar. And he realized there was something different, too, about himself.

Walking with her in the dark, he thought she might be frightened, wandering the city’s lesser-taken paths. But as soon as they’d come out, she’d linked her arm with his, and when they reached the brighter avenues, they didn’t separate. He’d never walked out with a girl for so long, hitched this way, and it was dizzying. Even in the heart of Chinatown, on Pitt Street, where the chimneys huffed out smoke as thick as eiderdown and viscous mud ran through the gutters, she looked at ease, composed.

‘How will you get home?’ he asked.

‘A taxi, I suppose.’

‘I’ll ride with you. It’s too late to be travelling alone.’ But this was only half the reason: he was not prepared to say goodnight to her.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘As long as you don’t try to pay the fare, as well.’