I reach down and fumble with the zip on the side of my boots, pull them off and place them, neatly, against the wall of the hallway. They look a little incongruous there, in the emptiness. I wonder when Marianne last had a visitor. Now, in my socks, I follow her through into her kitchen. There are brown cabinets on the walls and a stark strip-light above us. Marianne’s breathing is a little heavy. ‘How long has it been,’ she says, ‘two years?’

I clear my throat. ‘Three,’ I tell her.

She nods and lowers herself to sit at the table that presses up against the corner. It seems chilly in her flat. I wonder if – like me – she tries not to have the heating on in the day. I think again of how I remember her: a dozen jobs always stacked on her desk, a source of energy in the office, coordinating everything, always on the go. I’d never thought of her life outside. Yet her flat here seems so bare: the surfaces in the kitchen are perfectly polished, no washing up cluttering the sink. It doesn’t seem as though anyone else lives here. I think of my own flat where only Charlie and I live, and we hardly have any visitors either, but our flat feels much more lived-in than this.

She gestures to me to sit down, and I notice now the knots in her fingers. I slip into the seat across from her, precise and upright, the way I used to sit at my civil service desk.

‘So,’ she says. ‘How on earth have you been?’

‘Oh …’ I shift on the chair. ‘Well, fine. I’m still working for the Housing Association, down in Brixton.’

Marianne nods. ‘That’s good.’

‘And … what about you? How are you keeping?’

Marianne gestures to her stick. ‘Not so good … as you can see. Arthritis. It forced me to retire a few months ago.’

So now she’s here, in this flat, on her own.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I say. What I told her over the phone must have been such a shock. I regret that all over again; I wish I’d arranged first to meet her and then I could have told her everything, from the beginning, face to face.

She gives a smile. ‘And how is Charlie? He must be – what now – nine?’

I blush, touched that she remembered. ‘Yes, that’s right, almost nine. He’s doing –’ tell the truth – ‘he’s doing just fine.’

As though she has just thought of something, Marianne pushes herself up from the table again and fetches two glasses down from a cupboard. She runs each under the tap in the sink and carries them back to the table. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘In case you’re thirsty.’