When Moss comes in he takes off his trilby and throws it down on the table. ‘You’ve destroyed our lives,’ he says furiously.

I feel sick. ‘I’m sorry. It was for a good reason; did Dinah tell you that? She wanted to surprise you.’

He ignores me and I follow him to the back of the shop, where he looks at the rail of dresses waiting to be altered. He takes off his jacket, unhooks one, uncovers his sewing machine and stoically sits down to start work.

‘Look, how were we to know they were fakes?’

Moss looks hurt. ‘They weren’t fakes. They were the original fabric, the original pattern, everything Chanel quality, apart from the label. At that time there were four thousand of us working for her and we worked for low wages and long hours until she shut the couture house in 1939, lying to us that it was because of the war. What were we to do? We kept the patterns. How else would we know how to copy? I wanted to give these gifts to my wife, gifts she’d value. Since when is that a crime? This is your fault! She was happy, but you tried to sell her happiness and now she wants to leave me. There’s nothing left for me if she goes.’

‘Come on, Moss, sit down, buddy,’ David says. He pushes his fingers through the hair at his temples. ‘I don’t understand. What difference does it make who made them, whether it’s Chanel or you? Neither Dinah nor Fern could tell the difference and she looks wonderful in them. You made them for her because you love her. Surely that’s what counts?’

I rub the heel of my hand against my forehead. ‘That’s not really how it works in fashion.’ Although, for the first time, I wonder if it should be.

‘Where’s Dinah now?’

‘In bed.’ There’s a look of great sorrow and suffering in his eyes, which cuts me to my core.

The morning passes slowly. I’m wrapping up a dress for a customer, when I sense someone looking at me.

It’s a middle-aged woman, with pale hair the colour of a latte and a solemn expression. She’s wearing a beige polka-dot wrap-around dress and for a moment she’s lost from view as people walk past, but then she emerges again as immovable as a rock in a river.

Blimey! I realise with a start. It’s my mother!

As my customer writes her details in my client book, I give my mother a brief wave in the form of a gentle, almost imperceptible waggle of my fingers. Nothing too vulgar or ostentatious, you understand. She hates that.

My mother glides over, her skirt dancing in the breeze. She looks at our shop with its universe on one side and rainbow array of dresses on the other.

As my client leaves, I say, ‘Mum!’