Dad asked me this morning how it went, the date. I lied and said it was fine, but I expect he’s not fooled. I didn’t smile and laugh at the commuting pigeon, either. I stared morosely at my own reflection in the opposite window of the tube as we rattled here, disappointment scraping away at my insides with a metal spoon. No one expects a reflection of a middle-aged face in a tube window to be flattering but I looked blank, a non-person.

I wondered if Philippa Helens had stared at such a reflection of herself, on her final journey. If she literally couldn’t stand the sight of herself. I read something new about her last night, actually, something quite strange: that on the Victoria Line leg of her tube journey from Knightsbridge, where she was due to change at Warren Street for the Northern Line, she was caught on CCTV getting off the train when it stopped at Oxford Circus, walking two carriages down the platform (with her balloon?), and getting on again before the doors re-closed.

‘Arthur Liberty had a vision of an emporium with luxuries and fabrics from distant lands,’ continues Dad rather morosely, ‘and he borrowed two thousand pounds from his future father-in-law to make it happen. The loan was repaid in eighteen months.’

‘Wonderful,’ I say, a robot with a residual headache from two gin cocktails and one large measure of confusion. Maybe some paisley scarves and an assault of perfumes will distract me from what happened last night (dated, kissed, dismissed …), and today’s sunshine will blast me from the darkness I felt in bed last night, when my memories crept over me like shadows.

‘Shall we go in?’

Dad and I approach the main entrance, where overflowing blooms in metal pots spilling out on to the pavement welcome us into the fragrant, wood-panelled lobby with a heady bouquet. I realize I’ve never been inside this building before. It’s beautiful. It’s kind of cosy.

‘Cheer up, Dad,’ I say, and, ‘everything will be all right,’ I randomly add. Sod him, I think. No, not Dad. Sod Salvi. Yes, I shouldn’t have put my head above the parapet only for it to be shot down but sod him. It was only one date. I’ll get over it. I don’t want to be a blank face in a tube-station window, numbed by some man.