Back at 4.15. Did that mean Lesley? Now I had seen her street she had grown so possible that I felt like hiding. I pictured her coming round the corner; she wore her old army coat and bobble-hat and she fished for her door-keys. She would have changed her clothes since then, of course; what did women like her wear now?

Back at 4.15. It might be one of the sharing women who would be coming back then. Actually, I would prefer that. I could announce myself at one remove and spare everybody a heart attack. On the other hand, it could be Edward, back at 4.15 after school. His careful printing.

I looked at my watch. 3.20. Just then I heard a child shouting.

‘Wait!’ it cried.

I swung round.

‘Hey, wait!’

I peered through the railings. A child was hurrying across the playground. He wasn’t running towards me, of course; he was catching up with two boys who were going into a Portakabin. I decided to wait it out, at the school gates. School would end at 4.00. If he lived in this street, then this was likely to be his school. Boys and Girls 11–18 Yrs said its sign. I took out a cigarette and lit it. In the building a bell rang.

For an absurd moment I felt like an ordinary father on an ordinary day. An ice-cream van had moved into position nearby. Children crossed the playground. Many of them were brown, and some wore turbans. They jostled each other; one shouted, ‘Fuck off, Ahmed!’ There was a banner at one of the windows but from here I couldn’t read it. I hadn’t been near a school for a quarter of a century, not since I’d been at my own, St Botolph’s High in Bromley. It had been surrounded by trees which in my memory were always in full leaf. Oh come all ye faithful we sang in the hall. There had only been one black boy; he had bragged, untruthfully, that he was a prince.

3.35. The last lesson must be in progress. Pupils, however, still seemed to be wandering around. Two girls, in tight skirts, leant against the Portakabin, popped something into their mouths and dropped the paper. Nobody wore school uniform; it gave the place a casual, adult air, as if the pupils had just decided to visit for an hour or two. They looked older than I remembered.

Behind me the ice-cream man hawked and spat. On a normal day I would have chatted to him. The sun had gone in. Two women strolled up—mothers coming early. They were talking about marg and butter. Then I realized it was somebody called Marg who wasn’t speaking anymore to somebody called Betty.

In the playground the two girls were exchanging shoes. I heard their giggles. A chill breeze was blowing; from some building behind the school I heard a faint tannoy. I smoothed down my hair and smoked another cigarette. One of the women said; ‘So they told him he had polyps in his throat.’ I wondered whether I’d remembered to lock the coach.