Without warning, my spirits slumped. I was stupid to think that anybody would stay here long; it was a tourist town, millions of people passed through it each year, munching Kendal Mint Cake and scattering litter. Lesley and Edward wouldn’t be here, and after all this time who would remember them?

I parked in a coach park I had used years before—at least this place had facilities—and climbed down. My back ached; I had been driving for hours. I walked up the road, into the shopping street. On a November Tuesday there weren’t many people about. A couple of teenagers passed, wearing climbing boots; a woman loaded groceries into her car. There were three sweet-shops, selling postcards and souvenirs, but none of them overlooked the lake. In fact, I remembered now, the lake was a mile away. I shivered. Not only did I need pyjamas; I needed some gloves. I found a gents’ outfitters but it was so old-fashioned it had closed down.

I decided to walk the mile to the lake. There were more shops there, I remembered them—souvenir shops and a hotel, where I had once taken a tour for tea. I started down the main road. As I passed the bungalows, with their rockeries and Vacancies signs, I suddenly thought: I’m only doing this so I don’t have to go back to London.

I shut myself up. What a way to carry on. My son had probably biked along this road a hundred times. When school finished I might glimpse him free-wheeling round the corner, fresh-faced and whistling. I’d call his name: ‘Edward! Eddie!’ He would jam on his brakes and wobble to a halt.

I felt numb. I tried to make this place come alive. I tried to remember my holiday, when I was fifteen. Was it Windermere we had visited, or was it Ambleside? We’d sat in some teashop somewhere. I couldn’t remember; my brain had locked.

When I got down to the Lake it was no good. Most of the shops sold souvenirs and were closed for the winter; their view of the lake seemed to be blocked by the Old England Hotel, and now I had got there I couldn’t be bothered to investigate further.

This alarmed me. I felt vaguely ill and sat on a bench overlooking the lake. The sun had gone in and the water was steely; a gust of wind blew, shivering it. I had forgotten about lunch. This made me panic-stricken, I usually remember food. I should be hungry. I should be having a bite and then briskly conducting my enquiries. What was the matter?

I looked down at my hands; they seemed a long way away, as they had seemed when I’d sat in the kitchen and the room had begun to echo. They didn’t belong to me; they looked bleached and freckly. My arms looked inert. I heard sinister, small lapping sounds, the waves on the beach, and I heard Eleni’s voice, far off, saying she’d had enough of me. Enough, she lapped, enough. Without her face to distract me, I noticed for the first time the whiney quality of her voice. Above me the kitchen stretched higher. I asked myself: what did I do wrong? I heard the faint sounds of traffic, and the lapping water. If I could remember the day of the week, then I wouldn’t be going mad.