‘Hit me,’ I said to him, drinking in the sound of his voice and longing for the distance between us to lessen soon.

‘The record company want to call us The Band with No Name,’ he said, then waited for my inevitable reaction. I just burst out laughing and he did the same.

‘What genius came up with that?’ I ask him.

‘I was telling the label all about you,’ he says, his voice glowing with anticipation. ‘I said you could maybe send us some new material when you get a chance? I want this to be an opportunity for you too, Charlie. I can’t wait till you come here. You’ll love it.’

My heart soars when he talks like that and I picture it all in my head. Me and Tom, walking around London, somewhere like Notting Hill or Camden Town, exploring the culture, drinking in the diversity and writing songs that come to us like magic.

But deep down, I don’t know if the guilt I feel over Matthew’s brush with death will ever let that dream I have come true.

‘Miss Taylor, I drew you a picture.’

My daydreaming and reflecting is interrupted as usual by one of my seven-year-old pupils, little Gracie Marshall, who hands me a sheet of paper with a very circular-looking me, complete with my guitar and long, flowing purple gypsy dress. Above me is the most magnificent yellow sun with a smiling face that only a young child can draw.

‘Well now, Gracie, that has just brightened up my day, thank you,’ I say to her, putting the picture up on the wall beside me with my ever-present stash of Blu Tack. She grins from ear to ear and swings from side to side, so I know she has something else on her mind. I wait with a smile, wanting her to know she can ask me anything.

‘What is it, darling? Are you OK?’ I ask her.

She looks around, then up at me from under thick, dark eyelashes.

‘Will you … will you sing us a song, please, Miss Taylor?’ she eventually asks me, her brown eyes wide as saucers as she twiddles with her dark hair. ‘You haven’t sung to us in ages and ages and I love it when you sing your songs.’

I take a deep breath knowing this is very true. I don’t sing at all these days. I just can’t. Every time I lift my guitar and try, either at home or here in school, I feel Tom near me and I want to cry for how sore my heart still is without him.

He wants me to sing again, he told me in his last call. Maybe today, with the joy of spring in the air and an audience of very non-judgemental children, is as good a day as any to give it a go.