‘There’s Mrs Selwyn,’ said the boy.

‘Who’s Mrs Selwyn?’

He pointed to the next-door house, number 10. ‘She told me she’d lived here since she was a girl.’

‘Is she in?’

The boy shook his head. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘She lives at that place now.’

‘What place?’ I asked.

The woman said something to her husband. I’ve often wondered why it takes twice as long when people aren’t speaking English. I didn’t like this street anymore and knew I should admit defeat.

The man turned to me. ‘She lives in the Sheltered Housing.’

‘Where’s that?’

The boy pointed. ‘Left at Talbot Road, on past the market and first street on the right.’

‘Thanks.’ On impulse, I gave him the paper bag. He took out the Mars Bar and Rolos. ‘For you,’ I said.

I felt warmer towards the street now. I gazed up at the house, remembering it for Edward. Whatever had happened since, this street had once been familiar to him. We could share that memory, anyway.

I was just about to leave when a man came up. He carried a piece of paper.

‘Mr Ibrahim Mohammed?’ he said.

‘Mohammed Ibrahim,’ corrected the Indian man.

‘Oh well, same thing.’ He looked at the paper again. ‘One English Honeysuckle Sofabed.’

‘Yes.’ He looked around. ‘Where is it?’

The man pointed up the street. ‘Can’t get the van in. Some dickhead’s parked his coach on the corner.’

At the market I got stuck in a traffic jam. The place was just packing up; people were dismantling stalls and loading up double-parked vans. My vehicle didn’t help and I got some dirty looks. I ignored them. I Was still upset by the woman in the maroon coat calling me a pervert. Women had called me a lot of things: ‘insensitive’ (Eleni), ‘boring’ (Eleni), ‘undersexed’ (Eleni), ‘drunk’ (a girl I met at a party) and, most hurtful of all, simply ‘male’ (Lesley), but nobody had ever called me a pervert. She had said it with such hatred it had seemed like glee. It was so unfair when I was not only waiting for my son but he hadn’t been there anyway. Women, I thought.

I sat there, the engine idling. I wasn’t in a hurry anyway, because I didn’t hold out much hope for this Mrs Selwyn. Ahead of me was a Transit van. A purple-faced man in a sheepskin coat was loading up pieces of pale, lolling tripe; I realized it was foam. To my right, a Pakistani chap was packing loo-rolls and toothpaste into boxes. There was a meat stall with a sign above it in Hindi or something. Its chickens were wizened and yellow, not like English ones. I could be in Calcutta.

It was a curious sensation, as if I wasn’t there. I don’t mean the dark faces—there were plenty of them back in Peckham—but I felt exposed and out of place. In a foreign country. I’ve travelled all over, of course, in my job; compared to lots of people I’m cosmopolitan. But it’s different when you’re working—you’re visiting a place, you’re on an outing like the passengers, it’s an episode and after a few days you’ll be home.