Fondly.

‘Isn’t that marvellous?’ He nods at the ugly couple. He doesn’t seem to be aware of how dreadful they are, but instead starts going on about how great it is to see couples of that age happily married, still in love. I interrupt and point out that the couple are probably on a dirty weekend, and as Blackpool and Brighton were full, they’ve opted for Whitby. He smiles, ignores me and continues on about how he really believes in fidelity, friendship, familiarity.

‘And fucking,’ I add. Let’s cut to the chase.

‘Lovemaking is part of it. Of course, that’s important.’

He means this junk and the strange thing is that, as he waxes lyrical, I almost begin to believe it, too. His optimism is infectious. It must be the wine. In the nick of time I recover.

‘Christ, you’re wet,’ I spit nastily. I’m not sure why I’m being nasty. Perhaps it’s habit.

Darren refuses to take offence but smiles. ‘Maybe, but I prefer it to being a cynic.’

‘I’m not a cynic,’ I bite back. ‘I’m a—’

‘Realist,’ he finishes for me. ‘I take it that you don’t believe in everlasting love?’

‘Everlasting love!’ I snort my contempt. ‘There is no such thing. People use each other, wear each other out and then move on. You see it all the time. I bet you believe in the Loch Ness monster and Father Christmas, too,’ I snap. I look at Darren and his jaw is clenched. I’m not sure if he’s angry or upset. Turns out he’s both.

‘Why can’t you be civil? I’m doing you the favour here, remember. You invited yourself to my home. Has it been so awful for you, being here with my family and me?’

For a moment I’m floored. I sigh, sip my wine and answer honestly.

‘No, actually it hasn’t been awful at all. I’ve…’ I hesitate and then take a deep breath, ‘Really had a great time. You have a lovely family.’

Darren relaxes immediately and beams at me. ‘I hoped you had but I couldn’t be sure. One minute you’re laughing and the next you’re—’

‘What?’

‘Well, snarling, for want of a better word.’

I sigh again but accept his observation. ‘I do believe people fall in love, or at least lust, or something. We are a very weak species, generally. But they don’t stay in love, again because we’re too weak. Someone always gets hurt. And in my view it’s better to avoid any messiness altogether.’

‘Aren’t you being a little bit extreme?’

‘I can’t see a middle lane. Just a tiny bit in love doesn’t seem to be an option.’

‘Now I do agree with you there.’ He pauses and then asks gently, ‘Do you remember the other night at the Oxo restaurant?’

Was that just three nights ago? It seems a lifetime.

‘I asked you what really hurt you.’ I nod. ‘And then I realized it was none of my business and changed the subject.’ I nod again. ‘I wondered if you considered it my business yet? Because I’d really like to know what hurt you so badly that you shut down?’ He drops his eyes, not looking at me as he asks this question. He’s playing with the condiments.

I’m amazed he cares and I want to explain it to him. I wonder if I can.

‘It’s just that I’m not prepared to accept the flotsam and jetsam of humanity.’ He looks up quizzically. The debris that passes for a relationship,’ I moan, weary with it all. ‘Look, it doesn’t exist. This exciting love thing that you are obviously searching for, it doesn’t exist. I know I’ve had sex with over fifty men and I’ve never made love.’

I fall silent and wait for his reaction. He doesn’t look shocked or horrified by my confession. Which – irrationally – irritates me. I really want him to be disgusted with me. It would certainly be easier if he walked away now. Or I did. But I’m not sure I can. He’s waiting for a more thorough explanation.

‘In my experience, and as I’ve mentioned it’s wide and varied, people use each other and when they’ve finished using they leave.’ I pick up my knife and scrape the edge on the plastic tablecloth. I note the irony that a rather bad cover version of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ is playing in the background.

‘Who left?’

The way his voice breaks between the words ‘who’ and ‘left’ means it is absolutely impossible for me to resist.

‘My father.’ Stupid angry tears well up from nowhere. I’m stunned. I’ve kept them at bay for twenty-six years. Why now? Darren sweeps the tear away with his thumb and for a nanosecond the palm of his hand is in contact with my chin. It blisters my skin and oddly soothes it in the same instance. I look at him and despite my years of experience, despite the fact that I’ve only known him for a few days and despite the fact that he is devastatingly gorgeous-looking – which should always be a warning sign – I want to trust this man. I think I do trust him. Which is dangerous. I have to get a grip.

‘Look, I’m sorry. Can we forget that?’ I push away my tears and his thumb. ‘It’s been a long week and what with you pulling out of the show, I’m under a lot of pressure.’ He looks hurt. Which is exactly what I want. I want him to feel guilty. I look around the restaurant, desperate for a change of subject. Unless Darren has very strong views on flock wallpaper or plastic flower arrangements, I’m pretty stuck. The evening’s gone AWOL. I had thought that by pudding (it’s packet trifle, so the term ‘pudding’ is perhaps philanthropic) we would be flirting and talking exclusively in doubles entendres. Instead I’m drenched in big stuff, emotions, feelings of betrayal and, more extraordinarily, feelings of trust and possibility. The stuff I arduously avoid.

‘You are lucky to have so many brothers and sisters,’ I comment. I admit this isn’t exactly a change of subject – we are still on the personal; but it’s his personal rather than mine. Which is a far safer zone. ‘All this hugging and kissing stuff you do to each other, I think I’m on an American chat show.’

Darren smiles. ‘Aren’t all families the same?’ When I don’t answer he stops smiling and simply adds, ‘Well, it makes for interesting Christmases.’

‘Our house was always quiet. When he left he took-besides the regular income and the mock crocodile suitcases – the fire from the belly of our home. The rows stopped, for which I was grateful. My mother never cried or shouted again. But for that matter she never laughed or giggled either. She settled into an eerie calmness.’

How had that happened? I’m on about me again. I look at my empty glass. Darren sees it as a hint and refills it. I don’t argue.

‘She cooked for me, washed and ironed my clothes, attended my parents’ evenings at school, ensured ends met. She was perfectly adequate in every way. But I’ve often thought that the day my father left, I lost my mother too. It seemed she decided that loving was too risky and settled into the sanitized safety of simply caring for me. Even looking back, it seems unfair. I’d never leave her.’ I wish I’d shut up. I’m boring myself, never mind Darren. I mean it’s hardly the most entertaining anecdote that I could have come up with, is it? Yet I can’t stop myself.

‘I’m not blaming her. I mean I understand where she’s coming from. But occasionally it would have been nice if she could have read a fairy tale and closed the book without sniping that the prince would have a new woman by the end of the year.’

Darren smiles sadly and I force a wry grin back. ‘Side by side, we worked our way through Christmases and birthdays, holidays in Devon, O-levels, A-levels and finally university. Mum ironing and singing her anthems, ‘Does Anybody Miss Me?’ and ‘If You Go Away’. My formative years. She is a fine mum and I know she always did her best for me. But sometimes I wish that my father had left behind brothers and sisters to fill the rooms and disguise the sound of the hissing iron and the clanking radiators.’

We both wait silently as the waiter lowers two cups of coffee on to our table. I’m sure it’s instant; it’s served in the type of teaset that you collect from garages and with a plastic carton of UHT milk. Still, the waiter presents it as though he’d grown the beans himself and he was serving it in a seventeenth-century silver service. I would be annoyed that he’s interrupted our conversation but I like people to be involved in their work.

Darren asks, ‘Do you look like your mum or dad?’

‘I have two pictures of my father and, to my eternal disappointment, I am the image of that callous, deserting bastard. The pictures were taken in 1967 and 1975. The first is a wedding picture. I rescued the half my mother cut away.’

Darren looks bemused. Of course, he comes from a family wrapped in bliss – how could he understand about wedding pictures being cut in half? I try to explain it for him. ‘Oh, don’t worry, it wasn’t a violent, passionate act. She was very calm about it. She wanted to keep the pictures of herself because she did look wonderful, so she carefully cut around her dress. I remember her using my round-ended scissors from a play weaving kit. She sat at the kitchen table for two days. She erased him from the wedding photos, the ones of my birth, all holiday snaps. Everything. It was a thorough, systematic extermination of all evidence that he ever existed. I stole the 1975 picture before she got to it.’ Darren doesn’t interrupt. I check he’s listening. He is. He’s put down his coffee cup. Deliberately I pick mine up. ‘That was the year he left us. It’s a picture of him helping to blow out the seven candles on my birthday cake.’

How could he have left us, me – the very spit of him?

‘Do you miss him?’

‘Miss him? I don’t even remember him.’

We both fall silent again. I determinedly chew the mints. Just to show that I’m not bothered. It’s difficult to swallow.