From Christian Dior’s first collection, 1947, la Ligne Corolle, the iconic ‘Bar’ suit comprising a corseted waspwaisted skirt suit of Shantung silk and wool crêpe pleated skirt, with padded hips. 10/36, from the collection of Dinah Moss.

Moss is sitting outside the shop, recovered from his viral infection. He’s having a coffee break in the sunshine to top up his vitamin D while he reads the Jewish Chronicle. The top button of his white shirt is unbuttoned, his sleeves are rolled up and his jacket is folded carefully over the back of his chair.

David is sitting at his table, meticulously personalising a light box for a wedding anniversary. Sensing my longing gaze on him, he looks up at me and smiles. I smile back with a sudden rush of heat and the sensation makes me melt with pleasure.

I don’t know if there’s anything in the whole astrology business, but Lucy called it perfectly. He’s neat, self-motivated, cautious, sensitive. And good-looking, very good-looking. I’d be crazy to leave that fact out.

The aroma of stirfry is wafting over from the food stalls. My frocks are quivering on their rails in the summer breeze and passing women are coming to look at them like butterflies attracted to flowers. I’m wearing an electric-blue dress with wide Eighties shoulder pads that makes me feel like an American footballer, able to tackle anything, which is lucky because I’ve got my notebook on my knee, and I’ve been given the task of compiling the auction catalogue using Tallulah Young’s post-sales reports as a guide to the estimates.

I’m still working on it when my mother unexpectedly turns up at lunchtime in her taupe Sweaty Betty gym gear, cream hair in a ponytail, looking remarkably pleased with herself. Commanding our attention with her hands on her hips, she says, ‘Hello everybody, guess where I’ve been?’

I close my notebook. ‘Taking a wild guess here – the gym?’

‘No.’ She sits on the edge of David’s table. ‘Just for the record, darling, Ruth Bennett was completely wrong,’ she says, loosening her hair so that it falls around her face. She looks at David over her shoulder. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello,’ he replies cheerfully.

‘Wrong about what?’ I ask eagerly, wondering what accounts for her good mood.

‘Your father’s yoga teacher is not a femme fatale.’ She smirks. ‘He happens to be a chap in his sixties from Amsterdam. The class is for retired men.’

‘Uh-oh,’ I laugh, ‘don’t tell me – you crashed it, didn’t you?’

‘I did,’ she says smugly. ‘I was asked to leave.’

I grin, sensing from her tone there’s more. ‘And?’ I prompt her.