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We sat on the sofa with a bottle of red. She kicked off her heels and tucked her feet under her, the way she did on my parents’ garden bench, and suddenly it felt less like a disaster and more like a very strange catch-up.
She told me about the job first, because I asked and because she wanted me to understand. Two years with Ivory Rose. Fully licensed, checked by the council, an agency that looked after its women. It paid for her master’s and her flat, and she was good at it, and she liked it, mostly.
“Most of my clients are lonely,” she said. “Nice men who forgot how to talk to women. Some want sex. Some want a girlfriend for two hours. Some just want someone to listen.”
“Which am I?”
“I don’t know yet.” She swirled her wine. “You’re the first one I already know.”
I told her about Laura and the sourdough man. She laughed at the right moments and swore on my behalf at the others. Our knees were touching. Neither of us moved them.
“Can I tell you something embarrassing?” she said. “When I was twenty-one, I had the most enormous crush on you. You came to the barbecue in that awful band T-shirt and I followed you round the garden all afternoon.”
“I thought you were just really into swingball.”
“I was really into watching you lose at swingball.”