‘You know, there are so many ways we can get some support,’ I said. ‘I’ve already started looking at how we could get a bit of help or advice –’

‘I can’t think about this now,’ she said brightly and suddenly, turning back towards the mirror. ‘Tell me how you are.’

‘I’m great,’ I replied, knowing not to push her any further today. ‘I’ve got proofs of my new book for you in my bag.’

‘Oh, I can’t wait to see them!’

‘And I’m in a relationship.’

‘NO!’ she said, turning back to face me. ‘With who?’

‘A lovely man called Max.’

‘What does he do?!’

‘He’s an accountant,’ I said. ‘But he sort of hates it.’

‘Accountant, that’s a good job, very decent job,’ she said, assessing everything I said out loud that should be assessed in her head. ‘Where did you meet?’

‘On a dating app.’

‘Sarah’s daughter met her husband on a dating app. He’s a personal trainer, runs marathons. No shame in it.’

‘I didn’t say there was any shame in it.’

‘We’ve got to meet him. When are we all having dinner?’

‘Would you like to?’

‘Yes!’ she squeaked. ‘Of course!’

‘You don’t think Dad might find a new person a bit overwhelming?’

‘No, no, he’ll be fine, leave him to me.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Right, do you like condensed milk?’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got a load of it going spare, so I’ve brought a few tins here on the off-chance you’d like some.’

‘Is this for one of your blogs?’

‘Mum,’ I said, already hating myself for the fragility of my ego, ‘I haven’t written blogs since I was in my mid-twenties. I’m working directly with the brand to come up with recipe ideas and help advertise the product.’

‘All right, all right. No thank you, I won’t eat it. Your dad will. I remember Grandma Nelly saying that condensed milk on bananas was his favourite thing to eat when he was a kid.’

I cut up a banana and put it into a bowl along with half a tin of condensed milk and took it in to Dad, who was still happily clattering about as he polished the silverware.

‘Here you go,’ I said. ‘Unorthodox elevenses.’

He put down the polish and cloth and examined the bowl. He took a spoon from me and cautiously ate a mouthful. As he chewed, his face animated with recognition.

‘I ate this with Uncle Nick when we were kids. Mum would give it to us as a treat, she used it as a bribe to make us do chores around the house. Once, I drank a whole tin thinking she wouldn’t notice. I got walloped,’ he said. ‘Christ, it’s delicious. I’m amazed I have any teeth left in my mouth.’

‘Good!’ I said, delighted that he was speaking of coherent, verifiable memories. ‘I’ve left a load of tins for you to get through.’

I walked into the living room and saw, splayed on his armchair, a copy of Robinson Crusoe opened in its middle. The earlier conversation we’d had suddenly made sense, and I felt both unsettled and relieved. I was glad that, of all the books on his shelf, he had chosen to read that one that morning. I was glad he was about to set sail to Guinea on a swashbuckling adventure. If I were him, that’s exactly where I’d like to be as well. I’d want to go as far away as possible.

When I got home, I knocked on Angelo’s door, like I had fruitlessly every day since our argument from my bedroom window in the middle of the night. This time, however, he answered. His hair and face looked creased and turned over, like an unmade bed. He squinted and rubbed his eyes, adjusting to the hallway light. The lamps were off in his flat and the curtains were drawn. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hi?’ he said.

‘I wanted to talk about the other night.’ He stared at me – sand-specks of sleep in his eyes, his full lips even poutier than usual from just-awoken dehydration. I waited for him to speak before relenting. ‘Right, I’ll start then. How you behaved the other night was not cool.’ Not cool. There I was again, in the interest of neighbourly diplomacy, employing parlance I had only ever used when I was a teacher who’d lost control of a GCSE classroom.

‘When you shout at me like an animal?’ he said, picking the yellow crumbs from his tear ducts.

‘I didn’t shout at you, I very politely asked you a good few times to stop talking so loudly at half twelve on a weeknight.’

‘If you wanted us to be quiet, you should have come down and knock on the door.’

‘You never answer your door.’

‘Do not shout at me.’

My long-contained frustration was seeping out of me and making my skin tingle. ‘Stop saying that, it doesn’t make any sense. You were the one who was shouting.’

‘No I wasn’t.’

‘Can you not just apologize? That’s all I need. Then we can move on.’

‘No,’ he said, his face expressionless.

‘What?’

‘No,’ he bleated as he closed his front door.

Max and I went for dinner that night – I was reviewing a newly opened pub and I took him with me. Now, more than ever, I needed the secret door of his company to take me to the fantastical place it had been taking me from our very first date.

‘Let me look at that cover again,’ he said at the bottom of our second bottle of wine, reaching for my phone and bringing up the photo of The Tiny Kitchen’s book jacket. ‘I can’t wait to see it on the shelves. You clever, clever thing.’ I felt myself lean towards his praise like it was the warmth of sunlight. I realized how much I had wanted Dad to say the same thing – I had decided to keep the proofs in my bag earlier that day and give him a copy another time. I hadn’t wanted to cause any more confusion.

‘I’ve had an idea,’ I said, placing my glass on the bar. ‘For my next book. I haven’t told anyone yet and I wanted to tell you first because I know you’ll tell me if it’s bad or not.’

Max straightened his spine and shook his face to sober himself up. ‘I’m here. Pitch.’

‘So, I saw my dad today, who was in a pretty disorientated mood. Getting things confused, imagining conversations, mixing up things that had happened with things that he’d read. I made him something to eat because I had a bunch of condensed milk with me – you know I’m doing that weird job with the condensed milk company?’ He nodded. ‘So I made him condensed milk and bananas, because Mum said it was his favourite when he was a kid. And honestly, when he ate it, it was like a switch to his old self had been flicked back on. It was brief, but so immediate.’

‘How interesting.’

‘It made me think about food and memory. How much our eating habits are dictated by nostalgia. Looking into what it is about taste and smell that sparks involuntary memory. It would be a book of recipes, stories and science. Viv wanted me to write something human. I can’t think of a more human way into food than talking about how it connects us to our past. What do you think?’

He pushed my wayward fringe wings to the side of my face. ‘I think it’s great.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. I love it. Proustian Cooking with Nina Dean,’ he said. ‘No, that needs work.’

‘And I’ll interview psychologists about why exactly certain tastes are linked to certain feelings.’

‘And you should research what the comfort foods are of every generation.’

‘Exactly – the historical context of why post-rationing war babies love bananas. And why our generation love hamburgers.’

‘Free toy with a Happy Meal.’

‘Free toy with a Happy Meal,’ I agreed.

‘It’s brilliant,’ he said, leaning into me like something he wanted a bite of. ‘You’re brilliant.’

We contemplated a third bottle of wine, and as light, silly tipsiness slid towards full-blown, slack-jawed drunkenness, the bell of a thousand soon-to-be-first-shags rang. ‘Last orders!’ echoed down the bar.

‘I’m not done drinking,’ I said.

‘No, you’re not,’ he said, a filter held between his lips as he rolled a cigarette. ‘Now, what’s next on the agenda, Nina George? What else have we got to fix, because I can’t bear seeing you sad and wallowing with your pretty little mouth all downturned and sulky.’

‘The nightmare neighbour downstairs.’

‘I think I should just go talk to him,’ he said. ‘He sounds like he might be one of those awful men who only listens to other men.’

‘No,’ I said, laying my palm against his shoulder and stroking the soft brushed cotton of his navy shirt. ‘I have to deal with him on my own.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘I do,’ I said, draining my wine glass. ‘I know that sounds petulant. But it’s important that I manage this situation without the help of a man. I need to know I can operate efficiently on my own.’