backstory and my embarrassment at being surrounded by so much nakedness dissolved. As did my claustrophobia from the packed galleries because it meant I could lean into Rory to listen to him.
‘How do you know about all this?’ I asked him.
‘My mother. She’s always loved art and I’m an only child so I got the full education. The full monty. No beach holidays. It was Rome, Florence, Venice… Off to see whatever exhibition she could find. Oh look, this Titian is exquisite,’ he said, reaching for my hand and pulling me in front of another reclining woman. Although one of her hands was also resting in her groin, she was staring at us with a bored expression.
‘Isn’t it extraordinary?’ said Rory, his eyes scanning the canvas. ‘It’s one of his most famous, painted for an Italian nobleman of his new wife. Do you see the dog and the maids?’ He pointed at a small spaniel curled on the sheets and two women in the background.
I nodded.
‘It’s supposed to serve as a reminder to his wife, with all the drudgery of marriage, not to forget about the bedroom.’
He turned and winked at me and I burst out laughing, before clapping a hand over my mouth. The atmosphere in the galleries was too hushed for hoots of laughter.
‘Shall we get a coffee?’ he said, grinning back.
‘Yes, good plan,’ I said gratefully. I felt that imbued sense of cultural improvement at having drifted through a set of galleries, but the naked ladies – all rounded hips, hair tumbling artfully over their shoulders, and breasts as round as rock cakes – were starting to blend into one another.
Rory told me to bag a seat by the café’s windows while he queued. I glanced at the other tables as I sat and wondered whether we looked like two people on a date or two friends catching up. Surrounded by tourists and tables covered in empty sugar packets, this suddenly didn’t feel much like a date. More an interview, like Jaz had said. Perhaps Rory would come back to the table and ask me what my strengths and weaknesses were and where I saw myself in five years’ time? I looked at my phone.
Ruby: Update please!
Mia: Is he coming to the wedding?
I slid it back into my bag as Rory twisted his way between the tables towards me with a tray.
‘Here we go,’ he said, lifting off the coffees and a plate of shortbread, before sliding the tray on to a spare chair so it was hidden underneath the table. ‘Otherwise it’s like we’re at school. Urgh,’ he shuddered.
‘How’s your book?’ I asked, having thought of the question while he was queueing. Good to have something prepped and avoid awkward silences.
Rory frowned.
‘The Struggle.’
He screwed his eyes shut. ‘I have a confession.’
‘What?’
‘I’d read it before.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Before I came into the shop. And Dooley’s first book, In the Middle of the Night. You were right. It is terrific.’
‘But how come you…’
‘Bought it? Because I wanted to keep talking to this charming woman who worked in the shop. She’s called Florence, and her surname is…?’
‘Fairfax,’ I replied, blushing again. I’d have to see a doctor.
‘Called Florence Fairfax, exactly. I wanted to keep talking to her. And to gloss over the fact my mother had just bought a book about eroticism.’
I laughed then leant backwards, fearful that I’d just wafted coffee breath all over him. ‘Oh I see,’ I said. ‘So it was an evil ploy?’
‘For it to be evil, there’d have to be evil intentions, wouldn’t there?’
‘And you don’t have evil intentions?’ I asked, trying to replicate his coolness when it was the sort of question on which so much depended. The sort of question some of us take to heart, rolling the answer about in our heads like a marble in case any intelligence can be gleaned from it.
Rory shook his head. ‘Not in the least. I am a thoroughly upstanding sort.’ He leant back and hooked his thumbs through his braces.
‘What do you do?’ I asked. I couldn’t imagine him in an office sweating over a spreadsheet.
‘I work in the Foreign Office.’ He announced this as casually as if it was the post office.
‘Blimey. Doing what?’
‘I’m a spad. It’s a nickname; it means a special advisor.’
‘To who?’
‘To the minister, but I’m hoping, at the next election, to run as a candidate.’
‘As an MP?’ I tried not to sound incredulous.
He nodded. ‘My grandfather was one and since I was a teenager I’ve thought, well, why not?’