We had another drink and caught up on each other’s lives in a prescriptive way. He talked about his work and I talked about mine. We talked about his two girls, nineteen and twenty now, who lived with his ex-wife. I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask whether he had a girlfriend these days and he didn’t mention one. He asked about Karl. I implied that we were living separate lives but bringing up children together. We asked after each other’s parents. His mother had died and his father was in a home – we spent a long time talking about that; it’s a preoccupation at this time of our lives. Frankly the hours flew by; our intimacy seemed entirely normal. At one stage he took my hand in his and looked at it carefully. ‘I’d forgotten your hands,’ he said, ‘such pretty hands.’ We talked about how we had ended and, strangely, we both seemed to think the other person had ended it. What is the real narrative of events, Dr. R? Do you ever believe anyone at all? He asked me what it was that I needed to ask him about journalism. I bluffed about media training and said I’d follow up with sending him some questions.

We went on to another bar. It felt like we had to start all over again out in the street; our bodies had to readjust to each other. He was smaller than Karl. I felt tall at his side. We found a table near the back and talked and he ate and time went too fast. When the waiters started stacking plates at the bar, we were both of us reluctant to part and so he walked me slowly to Waterloo station. It was a beautiful warm summer evening, London looked stunning, and as we crossed Hungerford Bridge I stopped to take a picture of the view. It felt magical: the night, the skyline, the river, him.

‘Hey,’ he said, turning to me. And my happy heart sang a little song.

‘Hey,’ I said, leaning against the balustrade.