I smiled understandingly, because I knew what he meant. Our department was ostentatiously luxurious. Cream carpets, mirrors, drapes. We were selling the experience: this is what it’s like to be rich and have a personal shopper, a valet, an attendant, someone to admire you and to make you look the best you can be while you sit back and enjoy it then hand over a credit card at the end. We were selling the promise that all this could be theirs. And for two hours it was theirs to enjoy. But Kim Aston found it intimidating and I could understand that, too.

I said, ‘Would you prefer coffee or tea with your glass of champagne?’

That’s how we did it. We took it for granted that the client would have coffee or tea and a glass of champagne, to relax.

‘Tea, please.’

I tapped in the order on my iPad and led him through to the dressing room where the clothes I’d chosen for his sick wife were hanging.

On the telephone he’d been quite sure of what he wanted. Loose-fitting dresses, elasticated waists, silky fabrics and bright colours – size 14, he thought, or maybe a little bigger. I’d chosen six for his wife that I thought she might like, based on the image I’d built of her, but in the dressing room I realised I’d got it wrong because he looked at my selection anxiously, as if he’d already bought them all on impulse and realised he’d made a terrible mistake.

My colleague Mario carried the tray of drinks in and put it on a gilt, glass-topped table next to the cream velvet and gilt chair.

I handed Mr Aston his glass. There was nothing like a glass of fizz to boost the confidence of a wary shopper.

He held it at eye level and stared through the bubbles as if he were in a dream.

‘You said your wife likes bright colours,’ I said, ‘but if you’d prefer a more muted palette, I do have some things in mind that fulfil your criteria. What do you think of this? It’s silk jersey, very comfortable to wear and not restrictive,’ I said, showing him a red-and-blue Diane von Furstenberg wrap-around dress.

He smiled faintly as if amused. ‘We’ve been married forty-five years,’ he said. ‘It goes by very quickly.’ He looked at me closely. ‘You’re too young to know that yet. It’s all ahead of you, all that potential. For my wife, she’s reached the finish line and she’s having her bottle of water and her banana.’

I laughed, because it was a nice way of putting it.

‘She’s still interested in fashion,’ I said, ‘which is lovely.’