On Wednesday, it’s pouring down. I’ve dropped off the damaged clothes at Moss’s tailor’s shop and I’ve got a strong feeling that at last, things are looking up.

Back at the market, the cream canvas awnings flap wetly. David Westwood is sitting on his chair, head down, engrossed in sanding something, possibly a dovetail joint. The rain is bouncing off my umbrella and he looks up at me with a flicker of interest, thinking I’m a customer.

‘Morning,’ I say brightly over the sound of the rain, hating to disappoint.

‘Hi, Fern,’ he says with a smile. He blows the dust from the wood and smooths his hand along it.

I stand and linger a bit longer, but he’s concentrating on his work again, at home in his universe of stars.

There’s something about that kind of single-mindedness that I find really attractive in a man.

I see it in Mick when he’s working and his world, his existence, becomes all sound. But then I wonder if I’m just getting my emotions mixed up and it isn’t admiration, it’s jealousy, and because I’m attracted to him I want him to concentrate his attention on me. Mick, I mean, not David. Obviously.

I move on to my stall and poke a puddle of water out of my awning with my umbrella then stand back as it gushes along the cobbles. I wonder whether it’s even worth setting up in this weather. There’s nobody around. Our customers are all staying dry in the Horse Tunnel Market.

I sit on my suitcase and my phone rings. It’s Cato Hamilton, returning my call.

Cato’s an ambitious antiques trader in his late twenties who does house clearances. He has, in my opinion, an individual MO, because he’s got contacts in the funeral trade who leave his flyers and business cards at the deceased’s, and Cato waits for a response from the grateful executors. He’s got a 20 per cent hit rate; being a stoic he’s pleased with that. His personal style is the weekend-in-the-country look favoured by auctioneers: tweeds, soft flannel shirts and cords in autumn colours – berry red, straw yellow, purple heather, as if he’s just coming in after a tour of the estate, his fair hair very slightly windblown. He’s got a whispy fair beard that he’s convinced will fill out in time.

He sells me the clothes because he hasn’t got any interest in textiles – too specialist, he says. I keep the ones I want, give the high-street wearables to charity and take the rags for recycling.

We first met outside the Angel Comedy Club in Islington on a cold night in January, clapping our hands and stomping our feet to keep warm. This was our opening conversation:

ME: ‘Great! We’ll be first in! Yay!’ (Holds out hand.) ‘Fern Banks.’

HIM: ‘Cato Hamilton.’