The body language could hardly have been more awkward as Theresa May and Donald Trump posed for their blind date in front of the bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office. The prime minister kept her distance and looked faintly embarrassed, as if it was only just dawning on her that the main reason she was the first foreign leader to meet the US president was because all the others had thought better of it. That and the fact she was a bit desperate. Britain doesn’t have as many friends as it used to.

Trump merely looked a bit blank. Perhaps this was because the British prime minister wasn’t the woman he had been expecting. All morning the White House had been tweeting that he was about to meet Teresa May, the spelling mistake turning the prime minister into a porn star. The special relationship has always been rather more special to us than the Americans. As the two leaders finally shook hands, the bust of Churchill covered its eyes and begged to be sent back to Britain. Their hands remained uneasily entwined as they walked down the colonnade towards the Palm Room. When Trump started to creepily stroke her hand, Theresa almost retched. She quickly pulled herself together and reminded herself to just think of England. Sometimes you had to take one for the team.

Things had marginally improved by the time Trump and May began their press conference an hour or so later. They could at least look each other in the eye. The president kicked off by saying how honoured Theresa was to be the first leader to the White House and that their talks had highlighted Brexit was indeed a blessing and the special relationship was going to be even more special from now on. More special for who was left unanswered. His fingers appeared to be moving along his script as he talked. If Trump wasn’t exactly presidential, at least he held his narcissism vaguely in check.

Theresa appeared to have got rather more out of the talks than Trump. After promising Trump a ride in a horse-drawn coach with the Queen and a game of golf in Scotland, she had definitely heard the president say he was “100% behind Nato” even though he thought it was obsolete. She also said she would bully other EU leaders into paying more cash into Nato. Like they were going to listen to her. The prime minister also seemed to think the prospects were good for the US selling us chlorinated chicken and taking over the NHS and of course she understood that the US might want to terminate with 30 days’ notice.

Things became rather more interesting when the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg asked the awkward questions about torture, banning Muslims and being untrustworthy that Theresa had somehow forgotten to ask. “There goes that relationship,” said Trump. He was only half joking. The president went on to say that he was all for waterboarding but if his defence secretary decided not to use it that was OK by him as he could always be waterboarded into changing his mind.

“There will be times when we disagree about things we disagree about,” said Theresa trying not to sound too fawning while not wanting to upset her host. Her need was far greater than his. The Donald quickly veered off track. “I’ve had many times when I thought I was going to like someone only to find I don’t,” he replied. “So Theresa, we never really know about these things.” Theresa didn’t look altogether relieved. Not even when Trump immediately contradicted himself by saying he was a people person and could instantly tell if he was going to get on with them.

Theresa closed her eyes and hoped Trump wouldn’t get too sidetracked. Her prayers were answered as the Donald returned to Brexit. Brexit was great because he had predicted it and he’d never like those EU consortium guys because they had once cost him money by blocking one of his deals. “That’s why you needed Brexit,” he concluded.

The last word went to Theresa who tried to wrap things up in a more statesmanlike fashion by talking about “ordinary working people”, but by now Trump had already got bored and was tucking his speech inside his breast pocket as she spoke. Twenty minutes is about all his attention span can take. Theresa breathed a sigh of relief. It could have been worse. He could have started a war. He could have grabbed her pussy. At least she’d got out with some of her self-respect intact. Not much. But some.