She tells him about her marriage ‘on the rebound’ to an old flame, a charmer called Billy Bishop, and their move to Leeds, where he worked as an engineer. ‘It was such a stupid thing to do – he persuaded me that he’d changed, and he was lovely with Vicky. It worked well at first, but I never felt at home in Leeds. It was hard to make friends; they could never make out my accent, and I couldn’t understand theirs.’

They were short of money and she’d tried to go back to work, hoping for a job related to physics, or at least in science, as a laboratory technician or something similar. But all she was ever offered was mind-numbing menial work that barely covered the cost of a childminder. ‘There weren’t even enough jobs for all those men coming back from war,’ she said. ‘Women didn’t really get a look in.’

‘That’s a shame. You were always such a clever lass,’ he said.

She shrugs. ‘Besides, my marriage was already on the rocks and by the time I’d caught him having affairs with three different women I’d had enough. So I brought my daughter back to Suffolk and got a part-time job in the teashop. When the owners decided to sell, Ma and I went into partnership to buy the place. It’s made us a good living, over the years.’ She laughs, that same laugh that warmed his heart all those years ago.

‘What’s funny?’

‘I was just remembering something you said to me, that first day we met on the Cliff Path.’

‘Heavens. I hope it wasn’t too pompous?’

‘Not at all. I thought it was rather profound. I’d never met anyone who talked like that before.’

‘You’re worrying me now. Whatever did I say?’

‘I was wittering on about you being such a clever scientist developing important secret things and you said, “Yours is by far the most important work. The human race wouldn’t exist without food”.’

‘I was right, of course,’ he says. They laugh together now and it feels as though the years were never lost. They stare into the flames in comfortable silence, immersed in memories.

‘Are you still in touch with him, your husband?’ he asks after a while, not really knowing why. Seeking reassurance, perhaps.

‘Well, my daughter still sees him from time to time.’

‘That’s nice. Well, nice for her father, anyway.’

‘He wasn’t actually her father,’ she says suddenly, her cheeks colouring. ‘It’s complicated.’ She sighs. ‘Anyway, she’s a married woman now, and they’re expecting a baby in March. My first grandchild.’

‘You must be thrilled,’ he says, with more than a twinge of envy: the comfortable house, the daughter, the growing family around her. He recalls Ella’s depression when no children arrived and pictures his empty flat, the cupboards still filled with her clothes that he hasn’t had the heart to throw away, and the empty hours he spends, barely speaking to another soul, sometimes for days on end.