We finish our tea and leave the café and the grounds of Kenwood House and wend our way to Hampstead tube station. Kemp gets off at Belsize Park, saying he needs to buy more film for his camera. He missed me, I puzzle, as he waves cheerily at our departing train from the platform. I don’t know why. He’s glad I’m back in his life. Do I want him to be back in mine? I honestly don’t know.

When we get back to Chalk Farm, I tell Dad we need milk and some more bread. Dad asks for the key; he is tired and wants to go ahead. He can manage by himself while I go to the Stop n’ Shop.

There’s a queue. Some bloke is arguing about cigarettes and alcohol. When I finally get to pay for my bread and milk, the same bloke is ranting to himself in the doorway, a bottle of vodka in his hand he is struggling to get open. He stares at me as I walk past, as though there’s something wrong with me he can’t quite fathom. I don’t hang around for him to find out. As I come out of the shop and turn the corner of Chalk Farm station’s apex, I hear music.

It’s loud. Melodious. Familiar. It’s the Kinks, ‘Waterloo Sunset’. I look up, and the music is drifting down from the wide-open window of The Palladian. Dad has put it on. Dad must have lifted the creaky duck-egg-blue lid. Taken a record from a small stack on the little shelf underneath. Slipped it from its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. Felt for the edge of the record and lowered the needle. He must have felt the need for music. For melody. For the soft melancholic sound of Ray Davies’ voice and his lyrics about the sweet, sweet end to another London day. And for it to fill our flat and drift through the open window and down to the street below.

CHAPTER 28

There is a dress. A dress I saw last time I came to Loved Before. A dress so floaty and romantic I would never have dared buy it, even to keep at the back of my wardrobe, unworn, for some unknown and never-arriving event. It’s pale buttercup yellow, it has big white flowers on it, it is off-the-shoulder and mid-calf length and has ruffles and a low sexy wrap front – a bit English Rose meets Flamenco. It’s in my size, I know, because I’ve looked at the label. I think it might be perfect for my lunch with Salvi.