As we go inside and I get my first dizzying glimpse, I’m so stunned that I don’t hear the security guard asking if he can check my backpack. Poppy nudges me and I apologise, swinging it off my shoulder and unzipping it so that he can see that there’s nothing much in there apart from a flask that I need to refill with water at some point, an umbrella, some used tissues and my gloves, which I haven’t worn yet because I’d rather suffer stiff fingers if it means I can feel Poppy’s hand in mine. She does the same, unzipping her handbag and opening it up for him as I sling the strap of my backpack on to my shoulder. I hear her thank him then follow in awe as we walk down the slope into the muted grey light of the Turbine Hall.

‘Here she is. Isn’t she beautiful?’ Poppy says proudly, like she did on our first date when she took me to that coffee shop near the Pavilion and introduced me to it as if it was an old friend.

It’s so stark – nothing but hard lines – that I’m not sure ‘beautiful’ is the word I’d use to describe it. Still, it’s enough to stun me into silence for a moment or two. It looks more like a . . . I don’t know what it looks like, but it certainly doesn’t look like an art gallery. It’s vast. Smooth and grey, like the inside of a stone. And it’s loud. The art galleries I’ve been to have all the stiffness of a library. No photos. No touching anything. No getting too close to the paintings. But here it’s a cacophony of laughter as kids chase one another back and forth, their squeals skidding along the polished concrete floor and up the walls to join the cloud of commotion hovering high above our heads.

‘We’ve got just over an hour before our slot,’ Poppy tells me, checking her phone.

‘Slot?’ I ask, still distracted as I follow the thick black beams up to the impossibly high ceiling. There’s a red heart-shaped foil balloon trapped in the right-hand corner, by the entrance, where it will no doubt remain until it withers and finally sinks to the ground. I can only imagine the horror on the kid’s face as they let go out of it and watched it float up where no one can reach it, and wonder if the staff have a bet on when it will fall.

‘Our slot to see the Basquiat exhibition,’ she says, her voice noticeably louder than it was a moment ago. I think she’s said it more than once, because when I look at her, she’s frowning as if to say, Earth to Ash.

‘We need a slot?’ I frown back. ‘Can’t we just go in?’