In the foyer, my mother had her coat folded over one arm and her Marks & Spencer bags on the ground, one either side of her, as she crouched down next to Michael. He stood there, bulked up by his navy parka, Michelin-boy arms tightly folded, sweat in his hair, cheeks like red apples. There had been a tantrum when I was given my five minutes, as though all the unfairness in the world had surfaced at once and fallen on him, and now our mother had him scowling at a waxwork of a man and a dog. The man had hair like a Beatle, a lemon-coloured shirt and brown pants. He was standing with one foot on the floor and the other up on a bench, with his torso twisted and bent over so that one forearm could rest across the bent knee. It was a pose set up to manufacture a manly nonchalance, a mannequin pose that could sell mid-range leisure wear. It was not human, not quite. The dog, a black-and-white collie, had some life in its face but the rest of it looked no more real than a Lladro figurine, its white chest gleaming like porcelain.

‘It’s one of the men from Blue Peter,’ my mother was saying.

‘No, it’s not,’ Michael said, every word coming out fierce.

‘Of course it is, or they wouldn’t have it here.’ She pointed to the sign. ‘John Noakes and Shep from Blue Peter.’

‘There’s no John Noakes on Blue Peter!’ Michael stamped his foot hard. ‘No John Noakes!’

‘Simon,’ my mother said, making my name sound like the ultimate good news. She swivelled Michael to face me. ‘Simon’s back.’

Michael smiled, frowned, then found himself stuck somewhere in between.

‘Why don’t you two go to the shop?’ my mother said, steering Michael my way. ‘Get some postcards to send to people back home?’

She took her purse from her bag and pulled out a pound note, then a handful of change. Cards were five p on the street, but wouldn’t be in here.

Michael reached his clammy hand up for me to hold and my mother mouthed, ‘Thanks.’

The postcards were on a rack that spun around, and Michael wanted to spin it. He had no interest in the cards. The Chamber of Horrors cards were grouped together, and I grabbed a selection before letting him take over and drive the rack in mad unsteady circles, rocking on its feet. The woman at the counter was caught up in a conversation with a French tourist couple, who had bought a bagful of merchandise and were asking her where the Sherlock Holmes Museum was, pronouncing the ‘L’ in Holmes but not the ‘H’. Olms.

‘When I stop it, grab a card,’ I said to Michael, getting ready to catch the teetering rack. ‘And . . . grab.’