The lady struggles with the dog’s lead and sits down on the bench beside me, which seems to work in calming old Bouncer down at last.

‘There, there, it’s OK,’ she says and at first I think she’s talking to me. ‘No one’s going to hurt you. There’s room for us all, isn’t there?’

I glance out of the side of my eye to see Bouncer, puffing and panting as his owner pats his head, and I realize I’m holding onto the edge of the bench for dear life. That was a lot more unexpected and frightening than I even realized. I go to get up from the bench, feeling like I’ve sat somewhere I shouldn’t have in the first place. I’m still holding Tom’s message in my right hand.

‘No, please don’t go on our accord, please!’ says the lady. I turn to look at her properly now. She has a very kind face, a familiar face that looks like I should know her from somewhere. ‘You looked like you were so peaceful there. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you, but Bouncer thinks he owns this old bench. It’s where we used to sit when there were three of us. It’s just the two of us now, though.’

I have a new respect for Bouncer now and we look at each other having called a truce.

‘Your husband?’ I ask her. ‘I’m sorry.’

She puts a gloved hand briefly on my arm.

‘It’s OK, my dear, he had a long and fruitful life and we enjoyed every moment of it,’ she tells me. ‘We sang, we danced, we laughed, we cried, we argued and we disagreed. We fell out a lot, but we never fell out of love. I think that’s the secret.’

I think of Jack and how we hardly ever fall out at all. I think of Tom and how I didn’t like what I saw right now, and of the message in my hand asking me to give him one more chance, once again throwing me into an absolute spin. Why am I even contemplating this? I’ve made up my mind.

‘You know, life goes by in a blink and we spend far too much time wondering if we’re doing it right,’ the old lady goes on. She’s on quite a roll now but I’m enjoying what she has to say. ‘All that time wasted, wondering what if when we could be moving on and progressing, working towards our own destiny instead of always looking back. Jack was a great believer in letting things be your history, but he always said to focus on your destiny. He used to remind me of that almost every day when I dared to let the little things from my past get me down.’

I do a double-take.