My son was also on his feet to say goodbye. His quick nod assured me he’d look after his sister, and then I left. The thought of food actually made me gag, but I knew they’d share a hamburger, bolster each other, and that with Helena at the helm all would be well. I didn’t always, but right now I blessed my sister for being the captain in the family, and allowing me, on this, and many other occasions, to be the crew. We’d always scrapped and argued, but we’d also always been there for each other, always had each other’s backs. Particularly on the rare occasions when only your sister will do. Like when she needs to be injected in the bottom for IVF at a very specific time of day, on a number of very specific dates. We’d always risen to the occasion. I remembered her grief when the first round of treatment didn’t work. How I’d knelt before her and held her as she’d sobbed and sobbed, Ant with his head in his hands, helpless on the sofa beside her. And then the sobs of joy when she came round to tell me the next round had worked. She’d literally fallen through the door with tears streaming down her face, shouting with laughter, as we’d held one another. We’ve always been a rather loud, emotional family. See my parents on this score.

As I drove through the pretty Chelsea streets, I wondered if that was the problem. Michael had once told me that I was emotionally incontinent, which had astonished me, because he had no idea how much I kept inside. But perhaps if he’d married someone as constipated as he was, as damaged and repressed, for fear of exposing himself and getting hurt again, of being abandoned, as he’d once been as a ten-year-old boy, perhaps his life would have been happier too. Oh yes, I often tried to remind myself that there had to be two sides to every marriage. And that however much I blamed him for everything, in some way – in many ways, perhaps – I surely had to be culpable too.

I drove on through more familiar streets now, on the outskirts of Fulham, pretending I didn’t know where I was going. Pretending I was in a bit of a daze. And that in some strange, compulsive way, my hands on the steering wheel just seemed to be taking me home. To my house in Sands End. How odd. How really very peculiar that not only did I appear to be parked outside my old house, but that here I was, walking down to the meter to get a ticket, and sticking it under my windscreen. Extraordinary.