As for my nemesis, the true target of my vitriol, I would never have known it was her if it wasn’t for that damn fool solicitor. Or solicitor’s boy, I prefer to call him. Hardly out of school, still wet behind the ears, bumbling about, dropping papers and spilling secrets he had no business to even know, let alone tell.

Living here, he’d said. On the same special terms. Protected tenancies. Reduced rents. Two other women, one since dead. It was that skinny dancer from number 6, where the new family now lived. Jeremy’s family. His daughter, his grandson. Even his widow, for a while. How could I not have known who they were? But the dancer … I had never known much about her, never wanted to. She had been the one before me. Of no importance. She had been his past, and I was to be his future. I got some satisfaction from that. A small victory at least and, besides, it was much too late to deal with her now.

And then there was Miss Madalyn Cardew, at number 9. The one who came after me, the one he left me for. Right there under my nose, all those years. The one who had destroyed my life, and taken him away from me.

We met when he came into my café, Jeremy and I. It was 1976. A hot summer. I remember it as if it was yesterday. The place was empty, everyone outside soaking up the sun. We chatted as he drank his tea. I refilled his cup. He smiled and I smiled back. He took a rose from his lapel and handed it to me as he left. I pressed its petals inside a book. I have it still. There is nothing quite so romantic as a rose.

He came again the following week, and the one after. He would stay and chat when it was quiet, compliment me on my cakes, kiss my hand as he left. I was unused to male attention. I am not a woman of beauty. I never was. I was already forty and had never married. His charm, his easy manner, drew me in, enchanted me. Something in me must have appealed to him too, and for that I was grateful. Slowly, we developed an understanding, a closeness. I made no demands. I allowed him to shuffle off his fame and just be himself. Fed him, held him, listened to him. He would call in whenever he was rehearsing nearby, or when he was in a London play. Sometimes weeks would pass, but he always came back. We were like magnets, Jeremy and I. He was the north to my south. We were pulled together. He made me feel special, beautiful, desired, as no one else did, or had, or could. I gave myself to him willingly. I loved him, and I believed that he loved me. I like to believe it still.

When he ended things, I was devastated. He had met another woman. Younger, prettier, someone in the same business, and he had fallen in love with her. He told me her name was Lyn. Just Lyn. I never knew her full name. Just that he was sorry if he’d led me on.