I had a vision of myself on Blackfriars Bridge, in the dead of night, swaying from a girder.

I shook my head and tutted like the tip-tip-tip of the high hat, trying to get Jessie’s attention.

‘Well, it’s not to be sniffed at. I’m one of the few people in the world who know a lot about quantitative analysis.’

She slowly turned back, refocused her eyes and smiled indulgently.

‘My, my, we’re quite the chatterbox, aren’t we? I get it – you were the school creep and now you’re the office nerd.’

My upset showed. She laughed it off. ‘Only kidding. I’m a joker, remember. That’s why you were meant to meet me. Someone who can take you up to the high dive and say “Jump!”’

‘Except we’ve just met,’ I replied, shrugging, intrigued and flattered that anyone thought I’d even climb the high dive, let alone jump off.

‘Sometimes you just know. Look, we click, don’t we? I’m not asking you to marry me. Just come on an adventure. It’s less fun on your own.’

‘It’s true. I’ve not felt so comfortable with anyone in ages, in fact, not ever.’

It wasn’t true.

My mother.

Sometimes I thought I could sense her.

‘Think of me as your fairy godmother, Stanley.’

Summer evenings, my mother and I used to sit snuggled up on the settee, drinking home-made sarsaparilla and watching a film or documentary, free to discuss anything and everything, but always within the framework of watching the box. We didn’t even have to look at each other.

It was our way of communicating. Winters, we’d sip bush tea. Weekdays, my father was at the Working Men’s Club. Weekends, he stayed in. Weekends, I went out.

It had been so many years since. And still, it was only now, this blustery seaside morning, that I could bear to recall how much I missed our evenings together. A time when I was simply adored for simply being myself. In the archive where I stored my mother, the settee-file was always the first to show itself, a succession of colour snapshops and snippets of conversation. I’m all bony angles and she’s all squashy padding. I always put it right back on the shelf out of sight. Her fading away. Our farewells. The insufferable years afterwards. The solitude around me. The turbulence inside me. Still. To this day. The terrible absence. And now. And then. This blustery seaside morning. Here. A woman was choosing my company. The first woman since who. And. She was. Yes. She was filling me up.

I leaned over to kiss Jessie, running my fingers gently down her throat, feeling her in the pit of my stomach as she responded. We ignored the pointed coughing from the till behind.