On these signature perfumes designed for his great Mayfair enterprise, Ted had bestowed oddly simple and rustic names. They were called things like River and Sky and Leaf and Rain. In those days they smelled just like scent to me, which is to say that I liked them while feeling entirely excluded from what they were supposed to achieve, but even then I didn’t think the names sounded right for the hall of mirrors. They ought to have been more of the Ecstatic or Masquerade or Cause Célèbre variety, and there ought to have been more gold and shimmer about the packaging. It turned out that Ted was just a long way ahead of his time, of course. But it also meant that his Mayfair days of 1964 were short-lived.

He loved them, though, while they lasted.

I remember him in a grey suit with a chalk stripe and a pale, shimmery tie with a fat knot. I had called in at Scentsation for a reason, which was that I was going shopping. Daphne from school was having a record party for her birthday – singles piled up on her bedroom Dansette and maybe even some boys because, after all, we were fourteen at last – and rather to my surprise I had been handed an invitation. I knew the dress I wanted because I had seen it on my way down to the shop. It was made of blue-green satiny stuff with a moiré finish, and it had a smock cut and gathered cuffs that finished with a frill that would fall elegantly over the back of my hand.

I sidled into the shop and Valerie gave me a cool nod as she looked me up and down.

‘Is my dad here?’

‘Hello, Sadie. Just come from school? I’ll see.’ She knocked at the door that led into the smelling room and inclined her chignoned head to catch the response from within.

After a moment Ted materialised in his grey suit. He looked surprised and faintly irritated to see me. ‘Oh, Sadie. Yes, what is it?’

I looked from my father to Valerie and then back again. ‘I want to go shopping. You know, Daphne’s party. I told you, remember? And you said …’ My voice trailed away, as it did too often when I talked to him. He had a way of waiting and listening that breathed impatience. What I had been going to add was that he had promised days ago that he would give me money for my outfit. But money was never an easy topic to bring up with him; it was something to be skirted around at best and preferably avoided altogether. He had probably only made the promise in the first place to keep me quiet at some other inconvenient moment.