The door opened on to a fire escape. There was a metal platform from which a single flight of metal stairs led down to the alley alongside the pub. I let the heavy door swing shut behind us and the noise immediately diminished to muffled thudding. I held Cassie close to me as I sank down on the step. ‘Here we are,’ I murmured against her sweaty head. ‘Here we are now.’ She was drawing long, ragged breaths punctuated by hiccups. She snuffled a little and turned her face against my chest. My eyes stung and the complicated veins and ducts around my nipples ached with love. I hummed disjointed notes, deep in my throat, as much to comfort and reassure myself as her.

It was a hot June night. Even in my sleeveless dress the faintly stirring air felt warm on my arms. There was a stink of cats and of fried food from the pub kitchens downstairs. A door banged open below my feet and a kitchen porter slouched across the alley to toss a plastic rubbish sack into the overflowing wheelie bin parked against the wall. Cassie sighed and curled herself closer against me. Her breathing was even now and the hiccuping had stopped. I sat quietly, watching the cats around the bins and then looking up at the stars. Cassie fell asleep. The thudding behind my back stopped and after a few minutes started up with a different resonance. The set was over and the DJ had come on again.

The door behind me creaked open. A man’s legs appeared at the corner of my vision and then folded as whoever he was sat down on the step beside me. I was briefly irritated at this intrusion into my communion with Cassie and the velvety night.

‘Hello,’ Mr Rainbird said. He rested his wrists on his knees and we gazed down into the rancid alley.

‘I didn’t know you were a musician,’ I remarked.

‘I’m not. I’m a part-time trumpeter in a pub soul band.’ His voice was full of amusement, which made me think briefly of Jasper.

‘Is she yours?’ Mr Rainbird asked.

I laughed. ‘Thank you, that’s flattering. No, she’s the daughter of my business partner’s girlfriend. And Jerry,’ I added as an afterthought.

‘Ah. Right. I saw her on Jerry’s shoulders earlier on. When I saw you carrying her out I thought maybe you and he …’

I really laughed this time and, turning my head, was surprised by how close Mr Rainbird was sitting. The step wasn’t very wide. ‘No,’ I said.

‘Right. Good. Jerry’s probably not an ideal boyfriend. Or father, actually.’

There was a long but perfectly comfortable silence.

‘Anyway. It suits you, sitting there holding her like that. How’s Jack?’

‘He seems okay. Thanks. He goes to school, very unwillingly. But on the other hand he stays late quite often, at Bird Club.’

‘Bird Club?’

‘Yes.’

After another silent interval I asked him, ‘How do you come to be playing the trumpet in Jerry’s band?’