Suffice to say I am not looking forward to Jason Donovan’s concert this evening. Nothing against Jason himself, although I must confess that I am not familiar with his body of work.

“There’s no need for you to come with me,” Iris says, when I Google the number of the Hippodrome. “Besides, there won’t be any tickets left.”

There are tickets left. I purchase two of them. “You can’t bring your dad to a gig,” Iris says.

“He loves music,” I say.

“He loves Frank Sinatra,” Iris says.

“Exactly.”

I research everything on Iris’s iPad before I leave. It will take me twenty-two minutes to drive to the car park in Chinatown. I’ve allowed fifteen minutes for parking, to be safe. Then, a two-minute walk to the Hippodrome, which I’ve put down as ten minutes taking Iris’s sticks and Dad’s slack gait into account. Physically, there’s nothing wrong with Dad’s feet or legs. I’ve got the consultants’ reports to prove it. But he winces with every step, as if he’s barefoot on a pebbly beach. There’s no explanation for it, it’s just something that has to be factored in.

That’s forty-seven minutes in total, so we leave the restaurant sixty minutes before the concert is due to begin, to allow for any eventualities I have failed to consider.

Iris is wearing a jade green silk jumpsuit I haven’t seen before. Silver sandals, and a soft gray wrap that matches her hair, which she has left to dry naturally as is her habit. She is wearing what she calls her nighttime makeup. Traces of mascara and lipstick and barely discernible blusher along the long, high bones of her cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” Iris asks me. “You look worried. Have I made a dog’s dinner of the blusher? I have, haven’t I?”

“It’s my default expression,” I say, doing my best to relax my facial features. “And you look great.”

“I like your London look,” says Iris, grinning.

I look down at my new clothes. I’m wearing the pink tulle high-waisted midi-skirt, the pale peach cropped mohair jumper with three-quarter-length sleeves, and the brown gladiator summer sandals. I had to shave my legs. I used Dad’s razor and have two nicks to show for it.

Beneath the skirt, my new knickers—picked from a limited selection in a Tesco Express—make their presence felt with their sliver of gusset that has no truck with comfort.

Even with my hair in its usual ponytail, I look completely unlike myself.

“It’s not exactly me,” I say.

Iris doesn’t comment on the breadth of this understatement. Instead she says, “You look beautiful,” and gets into the car before I can think of a response.

Everything goes according to plan. In the car park, I manage to find a space and maneuver the car into it with no damage to my car or anyone else’s, in just under five minutes, leaving me with ten minutes to spare.

The two-minute walk to the Hippodrome takes us only eight. Mostly because Dad insists on stopping to admire the rows and rows of red Chinese lanterns strung across the street, which, I have to admit when I pause to look up, make for a cheerful display.