‘I’m sure they were very grateful,’ I said, clearing my throat and hiding my twitching mouth behind my coffee cup. Did they do this every week?

Hessel pressed his fingers together while he spoke. He sat upright in his dark leather chair, and the whole time Bette smiled and nodded and made assenting noises and caught my eye every now and then, moving only to refill coffee cups and plates, using the silver serving tongs to dole out cookies.

I didn’t know what to make of it. On the one hand I was trying not to laugh, but I was also beginning to feel paralysed. Hessel’s monologue was strangely numbing. I almost didn’t need to be here. I imagined myself in one of the pictures behind him, an oil-brushed image of myself, my face boldly lit against a shadowy background, my painted mouth thoughtful but unspeaking, a look of serious attentiveness on my face: ‘Young Woman, Listening.’ I found myself complying with this version of myself, as Bette did. Hessel’s complete lack of enquiry after my experience of the world, or Bette’s for that matter, meant that it would take a certain level of energy to project any of my own personality onto the scene. And it was more energy than I felt compelled to spend, quite frankly: let the old man have his moment, I thought, and I began to ask questions I knew he would enjoy: How fast was the motorcycle? Do you think Dutch coffee is better than Italian coffee?

Eventually, after an age, I tried to stand up, but Hessel continued talking as if I hadn’t moved – ‘Country women in Holland are not the same as country women here’ – and I was forced to sit back down. ‘In the Netherlands country women are sophisticated. My girlfriends – oh, they were all so smart.’ I looked at Bette but her eyes stayed down as Hessel detailed his girlfriends. He went on and on, and the less Bette responded the more I began to feel annoyance on her behalf. ‘They were great company,’ Hessel was saying. ‘They knew all the great philosophers, so they recognised a good thinker in me.’

I had to interrupt. ‘Weren’t they good thinkers themselves? If they were reading great philosophers it sounds like they were capable themselves of –’

‘Oh no,’ he stopped me. ‘Women’s brains are made different, they cannot think this way. Of course there are always exceptions, masculine women, but the attractive ones, they are the great appreciators – it is very important to have great appreciators.’

I felt my jaw falling. My mouth was actually falling open. I was going to laugh at him if I wasn’t careful – I wouldn’t be able to help myself. ‘So just how many girlfriends did you have?’ I asked, worried that I was chuckling a bit underneath it. But he actually smiled and laughed too. He thought I was with him, celebrating his conquests.

‘How many towns are there in Holland?’ he said.