‘No! Thank God!’

‘Why thank God?’

‘It would be embarrassing. Is that how you’d propose?’

‘I can’t propose to anyone. I have yet to make my fortune.’

‘It’s not the nineteenth century.’

‘It’s not not the nineteenth century either. Anyway, I probably wouldn’t. Get down on one knee. It’s a bit needy. If you do it in public it’s outright manipulative. Especially if I’d asked your father too.’

‘My father?’

‘I thought we were talking about how I’d propose to you.’

‘Not to me, to one.’

‘To one.’ I looked out of the window.

‘If you asked my dad for permission first, that would be a definite refusal from me. Unless he refused. In which case a definite acceptance.’

‘And where do I find your father? And how do I annoy him?’

‘Oh, would you?’ She rested her hand on my knee for a second and then took it off. ‘Just stand next to him and breathe. Back at my gran’s, in Partick. Just stand next to him and appear cheerful.’

‘Perhaps he’d like me. I get on with most people.’

She looked me up and down. ‘He’d detest you.’

‘What about Andrew? Who would he hate the most?’

‘Andrew.’

‘Why?’

‘He has more money than you. He’s more concentratedly English. I don’t mean English, I mean middle class. I don’t mean middle class, I mean successful. He’s more confident.’

‘You’re mistaking arrogance for confidence.’

‘Hey!’

‘But he does have more money than me. That’s why I need to seek my fortune.’

‘Let me know when you find it, though I’ll certainly be married by then.’

‘Oh, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘You can’t rush success.’

She smiled and shook her head. This wasn’t serious. ‘Any more questions before we move on?’

‘Will you wear a white dress?’

‘I will not.’

‘You have that white dress you wore to your launch party. Perhaps that’s what gave him the idea. You looked very marriable that evening.’

She gave me a look and picked up her book again.

‘We’re just about to pull in,’ I said.

She put her book down and took out her phone and we updated ourselves on the news in stunned silence.

Across the fields, the red tip of Blackpool Tower appeared in the cloudless blue. I pointed it out to Emily.

‘Sorry if it was awkward for you, the other day,’ she said, still looking out of the window. ‘We didn’t mean for you to be there then.’

‘It’s OK. I didn’t mind.’

‘Sophie took it better than I’d expected.’

‘Really?’

‘I imagined it being slightly worse.’

The tower disappeared behind a row of houses.

‘What did you and Sophie do when you left together?’ she asked.

‘Oh, you know.’

‘No?’

‘We went to the pub.’

‘Did you stay long?’

‘No.’

‘And – are you friends?’