‘That’s quite OK,’ she said, and left, looking over her shoulder to see if we’d come to blows yet. I sat back down and we were quiet until she had disappeared around the corner.

‘It was the 1970s,’ he said. ‘What is happening with you and Sophie?’

‘I don’t know. I like her. She seems to like me. Ask her.’

‘I will. Are you sure about that?’

I stood up. ‘Why shouldn’t she like me?’

‘Oh, of course she likes you: she likes everyone who annoys me. Calm down. Drink your fucking beer.’

I sat back down again.

‘Sorry to ask you this, Paul,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to. Is it Sophie or Emily you want?’

‘I didn’t know I was being offered the choice.’

‘You are not being offered the fucking choice,’ he said, standing up himself now.

‘Calm down. Drink your fucking beer.’

He sat down and laughed without humour.

‘You should be more gracious,’ I said.

‘I should be more gracious?’

‘Why are you so convinced I’m out to steal something from you? For a lucky generation you’re not very gracious. Look: they’ve got nothing, they must be desperate for what we have, let’s protect ourselves from them. Let’s sneer at their achievements.’

‘Your achievements.’ He laughed. ‘Well, I certainly know how you feel now. I suppose you’d have it that everything I’ve achieved is just down to luck.’

‘Sophie wouldn’t say it was luck. She’d say it was the deliberate perpetuation of advantage. Exploitation.’

‘Sophie is twenty-five years old.’

‘Don’t you think that might give her more insight than you into what it’s like to be young?’

‘Oh, it must be so boring to see the world in your terms. Everything a matter of power and justice and unfairness. Privileged vision. No agency. I know it’s circumstances that have done this to you, but it doesn’t make you any more attractive. At least Emily resists this carping on.’

‘Do you mind if I don’t state the obvious riposte to that?’ My drink was nearly finished now. I was glad about that.

‘You and Sophie are adults,’ he said. ‘Even if you don’t act like it. I wouldn’t mind what you got up to if I didn’t suspect you were gunning for me and Emily.’

‘Oh, come on. That’s Sophie, not me.’

‘I understand how Sophie feels about Emily. It’s your position I’m unsure of. What did you say? We’ve got everything and you’ve got nothing. Sophie’s not a thing, you know? She’s not my possession. You don’t win something back by having her.’

‘Seriously, fuck off.’

He sighed loudly and swept his hair back. ‘If I’ve misjudged things I apologise, Paul, but I can’t be a good father and not try to satisfy myself of your motives with Sophie.’