From time to time over the past few days I’ve been mulling over David Westwood’s comment that no good deed ever goes unpunished. Not that I’m superstitious or anything, but the fire did come shortly after my good deed.

More than anything, I’d like to prove him wrong.

LOT 6

A blue cotton day dress with five bowling-pin-shaped wooden buttons, fitted waist, patch pockets, size 12, labelled with Controlled Commodity symbol (CC41) to comply with government rationing controls, 1941

Sunday is a sunny day and the market is busy. However, sadly for me, I’m not busy at all. I was hoping to sell the last of my stock on my practically bare stall so that I’d have the funds to resupply, but the lack of choice is putting people off.

Gratifyingly, a few people recognise me from the article in the Camden New Journal and sympathise about the fire, but not enough to buy anything. I get them to write their contact details in my client book before they go.

I lean on the counter and watch the constant shifting tide of people flow past as I listen enviously to David Westwood’s sales patter above the noise, lifting my face to the warm sun, whiling away the time thinking up a patter of my own.

And then, suddenly, the mysterious lull occurs and the market is quiet again.

Mick has a theory that any lulls in conversation in a pub or restaurant occur at ten to or ten past the hour, so I check the time. Sure enough, it’s ten minutes past five and I feel a sudden fond urge to ring him and tell him. I’m just getting out my phone, when David casts his shadow over me.

‘That was crazy,’ he says, pushing up the sleeves of his black T-shirt, his mood buoyant. He’s grinning, high on success, and looks up at my rails. ‘How did you get on?’

‘Fine,’ I tell him, grinning back. I don’t want to ruin his mood.

Most people would take this statement at face value and I assume he has, too, because he strolls back around to his side. Then he returns with a single blue acrylic panel and holds it up to the light for me to look through.

‘This is what the constellation of Leo looks like,’ he says.

As I lean over the counter to look, chin in hand, I can feel his warmth radiating through his black T-shirt.

‘Yeah?’ I squint at it, trying hard to make something of the random holes. How the ancients got a lion out of that, I’ll never know. David’s tanned thumb is holding the Perspex, and I look at the pale crescent of his nail. ‘Nice!’

‘This is the tail, see?’ he says, slowly tracing the shape of a lion to the rump, down a leg, along the back and up the neck to the mane and the muzzle and the chest.