1989 was such a very, very important year in Europe. The wall fell, the Soviet Union was crumbling, and so many things happened - in 15 minutes, the world changed.

I hate plots.

I was perfectly calm, I was the anchor of the world.

Oh, well, we did have a good day out together, you and I, that doesn’t happen every day, does it?

It was as if gravity was suspended. It was like dancing, I thought, although I had never danced in my whole life. We were never to walk like that again.

But life had shifted its weight from one point to another, from one leg to the other, like a silent giant in the vast shadows against the ridge, and I did not feel like the person I had been when this day began, and I did not even know if that was something to be sorry for.

She looks at me, this is not what she had expected, she sniffs at the food and only slowly starts to eat, swallows each mouthful with demonstrative gloom, and then turns to look at me again, a long look, with those eyes, sighs and goes on, as if she were emptying the poisoned chalice. Spoiled dog.

There are some things with alcohol you must never do. You must never drink alone, never drink on Sundays, never drink before seven o’clock and if you do, it has to be on a Saturday.

There is nothing I need from the shop, and this is not the day for social profligacy.

Then she turns to me. ‘Tell me. How are you really?’ she says, as if there were two versions of my life, and now she is not on the verge of tears at all, but sharp-voiced as an interrogator.