I hadn’t. I had never been near the wooden shed since Camilla had left. Too many sounds came from it for my liking. I don’t mean ghostly sounds – as from the past. I mean too much scuttling of vermin feet; too many hisses of adders fanged. Camilla might have taught me what ragwort looks like, but the country still holds terrors for me. There are doors I still won’t open and stones I still won’t turn.

‘So it’s where I left it?’ Harry hoped. The idea that there was something, somewhere, that was where he’d left it seemed to fill Harry with a sort of simple pride.

‘That’s if the rats haven’t chewed it.’ I sounded irritated. I wanted to punish him for his stupidity. Pushing it under the doors of the shed indeed. He was the kind of person who slipped telegrams under mats, or dropped urgent pleas for help into rabbit warrens. I knew whose novels he belonged in.

But the significant thing about all this was that I kept on driving in the direction of Finchley. Six months ago – or less – I would have turned around and travelled a thousand miles if need be to lay my hands on something that Camilla had written me. So the signs are all good, as Harry himself might have said.

I’m back.

London didn’t work out. The first mistake I made was to try and contact some old friends. Of those that remembered who I was, a good half didn’t know I’d been away. Then I went out and got lost on the Tube. Things like that can break the spirit. I decided to cheer myself up by going to the theatre. I found a meaty David Hare to walk out of – Knuckle I think it was – but it wasn’t the same without Camilla. Walking out is essentially an activity for two. In the foyer, talking of walking, I walked into my cousin Bernice. She had a handsome Israeli on her arm – Yossie she called him – who was even hairier than she was. It left me quite melancholy and bereft, watching them go back into the auditorium hand in hand, knowing that they would be together after the play was over, and perhaps all night, twirling each other’s moustaches.