I do. I do. How can I forget? How we sat on the freezing stone steps at the front of the house and swigged out of the bottle of beer Kemp had smuggled out of the pub. How Kemp leapt up at one point and walked unsteadily backwards down the grassy bank to the pond, spreading his arms wide and calling out, ‘They filmed Notting Hill here, you know? When Julia Roberts is shooting that Henry James movie. I’m just a boy, prancing around in front of a permanently grumpy girl …’ How he returned to the steps and there our beautiful friendship ended.

‘You broke in,’ says Dad, sounding impressed. ‘A precursor for all this urban exploring you’re doing then, lad?’

‘I guess so,’ says Kemp. ‘It can be magical being somewhere you’re not supposed to be. It was the last night I saw you, Prue,’ he adds, looking in my direction.

‘Let’s walk a little, round the perimeter of the house,’ I say quickly. ‘People keep having to walk around us.’

We walk, the three of us. As I describe sash windows and pillars and porticos to Dad, I know it’s also magical, and heartbreaking, being with someone you’re not supposed to be with. I was not supposed to be sitting so close to this amazing man, in the moonlight, in front of this beautiful house, in these wonderful grounds that had been shut up for the night. I was not supposed to feel the way I did about him. When Kemp returned from his Notting Hill backwards-walking shtick, he plonked himself back down on the steps and his right thigh, in those dusty jeans, was touching mine and I could feel the heat of him, but it was nothing compared to the heat that was soaring through me, the pain of knowing I loved him but he couldn’t feel the same about me – ever. I was ugly, inside and out. I was not good, like him. I had too many black marks against me and he knew most of them.

‘I’m going to India next month,’ he told me, on that step. ‘Jaipur and Udaipur. The palaces.’

‘How lovely,’ I replied. ‘I bet you’ll get some amazing photos.’

‘Yeah, should be good,’ he said. ‘Have you been?’

‘Where, to India? Of course I haven’t!’