What am I setting up for myself, here? Some happiness, perhaps. I’m calm, and in good spirits, quietly, as if something important and good were about to happen. I’m not scared or nervous. I can’t even imagine it, how it will be, what it will look like, what felicities or clumsinesses either of us will commit. Bucket of cold water: he’s married. He is an intellectual and I am not. ‘He lives,’ said Z, who introduced us, ‘almost entirely in the world of books and ideas. I imagine that’s why he didn’t want to have children.’ Maybe he’s in the habit of having quick, harsh, demanding affairs. Or maybe this will be an important relationship, for both of us.