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faint supercilious sniff towards the pint, and led us into the restaurant like a funeral director escorting a grieving widow into church. He had white hair and a long nose, ideal for looking down at people contemptuously. He made good use of this natural gift. As he led us, I tried to free my private parts from the constriction of the jockey shorts with a few subtle jerking movements. I was unsuccessful, and it must have looked to the other diners as if I was suffering from St Vitus Dance.
    The waiter took us, as I had known he would, to the table next to the toilets. I didn't protest. It's my natural place in the scheme of things: Alan Calcutt, next to the toilets.
    He handed us unfashionably huge menus and also handed me a very serious wine list which would have made the Domesday Book look like a leaflet.
    'Bleedin' 'ell, it's expensive,' she said, just as I was making a similar observation to myself in slightly different words.
    She studied the menu in silence, her lips moving slightly as she read, and frowning when she came to difficult words, words like darne and galantine, words which were new to her and which I only vaguely understood.
    I made my choice, and turned to the wine list. There were more than a hundred clarets, ranging in price from twenty-four pounds to five hundred and twenty.
    'Can I see?' she asked.
    I handed it to her. She almost buckled under the weight. She turned the pages slowly. Time seemed to stand still. The waiter hovered obtrusively, but did not approach.
    'They've got it,' she said. 'The one I like.'
    I felt a shiver of fear. I couldn't afford five hundred and twenty pounds. But the reality was possibly even worse.
    'They've put it under "rest of the world".' she said. 'That can't be right, cos it's French. Liebfraumilch.'
    The waiter approached like gas across a battlefield.
    'Madam,' he commanded.
    'I'll have the terrine, please,' said Ange, 'and the fillet steak with pepper sauce. What does that come with?'
    'On its own, madam.'
    'Bleedin' 'ell, it's daylight fu . . . oops, sorry . . . king robbery. With . . . er . . . sauté potatoes, mashed potatoes, peas, cauliflower and green beans.'
    'How would you like your steak, madam?'
    'Well done.'
    'Sir?' He could barely get the word out, such was his contempt.
    'I'll have the scallops, and I'll have the pheasant with courgettes.'
    'Very good, sir.'
    'We'll see if it is.'
    Oh God, why did I say that?
    'I beg your pardon, sir?'
    'You said, "Very good". I said, "We'll see if it is very good".'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'And . . . er . . . we'll have a bottle of . . . er . . .' I swallowed. This took courage. This went against everything I had been bred for. '. . . of the Liebfraumilch.'
    He scurried off. I had not thought him capable of moving so fast.
    'I've never had pheasant,' said Ange.
    'It's very nice if it's well hung,' I said.
    'Does that make a difference?'
    'All the difference.'
    'Tons Thomas must be nice to eat, then.'
    I confess that this remark puzzled me, but I didn't challenge it. I knew how ignorant I was about darts. Here, though, was a convenient cue, an ideal opportunity to ask her, to draw her out, to enter the fascinating unknown world of competitive darts. Something prevented me. Jealousy towards Tons Thomas, perhaps. Anyway, I just couldn't bring myself to broach the subject. I knew that I needed to make conversation. I could hardly expect her to make the running, unsophisticated as she was, but I could think of nothing to say. It's quite hard, actually, to admit to you how inept I was that night.
    'It's filling up a bit,' I said, as two more people, stuffily dressed, entered the silent temple of gastronomy. I winced. 'It's filling up a bit,' observes Alan Calcutt, once thought to be one of the bright young hopes of British philosophical thinking.
    The waiter arrived with our bottle of Liebfraumilch. He held it gingerly, as if he might catch a fatal disease off it. He showed it to me. I nodded wretchedly. I wanted to be anywhere else than