‘What I mean, Fern, is that you could pass for twenty-six or even twenty-five in a dark room. You haven’t got flabby bits like other women your age. I think it’s all that hauling around buckets of flowers. And your height works for you because tall, athletic-looking women never look hunched and old and stuff. Plus you should be happy you’re not a kid any more. Young girls have gross skins, really spotty. You’ve got pearly skin; what’s the word? Sort of opaque, that’s it!’

Adam stops yakking and grins at me as though he’s just wooed me with an arrangement of beautiful and thoughtful words, the like of which haven’t been heard since Shakespeare put down his quill. He must be confused, then, when I glower back at him with all the resentment of Lady Macbeth.

‘I was not asking you for a critique on how well I’m ageing,’ I say.

‘Weren’t you?’

‘No. That’s not what this is about.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Adam pauses; his fork is stranded between his plate and his lips. A grain of rice falls on to his lap. He doesn’t brush it away. ‘But you said you wanted to talk about turning thirty.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘But you don’t want to talk about your party?’

‘No.’

‘Nor about how hot you are?’

‘No!’

‘Well, what then?’

‘About us.’

‘Us? What have we got to do with you turning thirty?’ Adam can no longer resist his pork chow mein with rainbow fried rice; he shovels the forkful of food into his mouth.

‘Why aren’t we married?’

I hadn’t meant to ask this so bluntly, and I immediately regret doing so when Adam’s rice makes its second appearance as he spits and splutters all over me. I pick grains from my hair as he downs his bottle of beer. Both of us are wondering what he’s going to say next.

‘Married? You want to get married,’ he says finally. Sadly, it isn’t a question.