She didn’t say anything, just perched herself on a stool across the table from me. Jeans, boots, a burgundy suede jacket I’d seen her in before, a darker t-shirt underneath. Her hair was up, held in a simple clasp, from which it cascaded in a tousled mess. Plain, utility Kate. Cowgirl Kate. And yet something glamorous and compelling about her too, like a sexier, more voluptuous Katherine Hepburn.

   So, no, she didn’t say anything. She had a carrier bag – one of those flimsy, rustling things that you get from corner shops. And from within this bag, she produced an envelope. Fat, brown, A4. She placed it in the middle of the table with exaggerated emphasis; then she crumpled up the carrier bag and let it fall to the floor where it began uncrumpling itself.

And now I became aware that she was staring at me, staring me out. Her face was set hard. But also magnificently proud, something crystalline about her, like an ice-sculpture swan.

   I tried another smile, a pleading for complicity. But definitely no response. She’d succeeded in spooking me, now she was observing me. Marking, noting.

   “Kate.”

   “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.”

   What could I say?

   “Well?” she insisted. “Are you?”

   It was somehow easier to return her stare now – and I was beginning to realise that I’d never liked her. Not really. There was something fundamentally ridiculous about her. Something you always tried to forgive or excuse but which in the end you just had to concede.

   And then, here it came, said with venom: “Don’t ever, ever think you can judge me. Or John for that matter.” A pause, a breath, a renewed sense of purpose: “I want this to be an end to it. Do you understand?”

   I don’t know why I nodded. But I did.

   And then suddenly, with a litheness bordering on violence, she was on her feet. I thought for a split second that she was going to slap me across the face – and before I really knew it, she had reached the door and had gone.

   For what seemed like forever, I stared at the package she’d left on the table. Then I snatched it up and came running after her. She was a good twenty paces gone, striding purposefully away.

   “Is this it?” I shouted, brandishing the envelope.

   I meant, Is this all there is?  But I didn’t really mean that at all. Not really. I was asking her something else entirely.