I walk round all the parts of the garden that are free to get into, but he’s not there. I pay a surprising number of pounds to get in, and ignore all the Victorian things, all the information about a family with ten children and a big fire, in my search for Leo. In the end I stop a woman wearing a National Trust uniform, and say, ‘Excuse me? I’m looking for Leo Chatterjee.’

‘Leo, you say,’ she says. She looks at me, interested. ‘He’s up in the nursery. Is he expecting you?’

Up in the nursery? What the heck? Leo never goes to work. That’s his thing. He hasn’t been for twenty years. What’s he doing in the nursery? I don’t even know if she means babies or plants.

‘Yes,’ I say. I try to remember what his job actually is. ‘I’m doing a project on conservation,’ I say, ‘and he’s going to help me.’

‘Then you’ll find him up the stairs.’ She gives me a set of instructions and I follow them, and end up in a perfect Victorian children’s nursery, with a row of little beds and a bookcase of old books, and Leo kneeling in the corner, wearing a dark blue National Trust shirt, checking something.

‘Leo!’ I say.

He looks up. ‘Hi there,’ he says. ‘Can I help?’

‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘Joe.’ He still looks confused. He is holding an old book and is clearly in the middle of packing it away. ‘I see you every week.’

His face is blank. I step closer and look at him, trying to work out if he’s messing with me, but he’s not.

Leo doesn’t know me.

‘Did you have a question about the house?’ he tries.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I have a question about why you don’t recognize me.’

‘I see,’ he says, and I can see that he’s wary. He stands up. ‘I’m sorry. I should clearly remember you but I’m afraid I don’t. Were you younger when we met? How can I help?’

I wait for the smallest flicker, but there’s nothing. I realize that he doesn’t even look the same. He’s more polished. Not only is he wearing his work uniform, but his hair is styled in a way it never normally is.

‘You really don’t know me,’ I say. I look at a doll sitting in a little chair. This place feels a bit creepy.

‘I do apologize,’ he says.

The man who has eleven different dens in the woods, who meditates on the train platform, who has filled his eternity by learning to walk on his hands and speak conversational Spanish is apologizing to me. He doesn’t know me at all.

This freaks me right out.

‘Never mind,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t matter.’