Dad smiles. It was an expression I used when I was young. Tough cheese. It went nicely with ‘bog off’ and ‘wotcha’ … the lingo of seventies and eighties kids.

‘You’re a grown-up, you can see whoever you like.’

I sit down in my chair. Reach for the packet of peanuts. ‘Thanks. So, the last place on your list, Albert Bridge?’ I say, feeling relieved, charitable; wanting to appease. Dad had mentioned Albert Bridge earlier in the week but such was my Salvi slump, I hadn’t wanted to go. ‘When shall we take a trip there?’

‘Saturday? Might as well make a day of it, gallivanting around?’

‘Albert Bridge in the afternoon and Finsbury Park in the evening?’ I suggest.

‘Why not?’

‘OK, that’s a date,’ I say. ‘Saturday it is.’

CHAPTER 41

‘The Albert Bridge was built in 1873,’ Dad tells me, ‘as a cable-stayed bridge that turned out to be structurally unsound, so it was modified with suspension bridge elements by Sir Joseph Bazalgette between 1874 and 1888.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And, in 1973, two concrete piers were added, transforming the central span into a single-beam bridge and making it an unusual hybrid of three different styles. Am I boring you yet?’

‘No, Dad.’ His touch on my arm is light. My steps, sandals on pavement, are satisfying. ‘But I had no idea there was so much to be said about bridges.’

‘There’s always a lot to be said about bridges.’

Dad and I are walking up Chelsea Embankment, on approach to Albert Bridge; the sun is blazing above us. The air is perfectly still; there is no breeze this early afternoon to disturb the languid heat. There’s no birdsong either. London’s flocks are quiet, choosing to keep counsel on the world, and summer itself seems suspended, hanging on its own blistering falsehood that it is endless. That days like this are simply all there is.

‘Albert Bridge is possibly my favourite,’ continues Dad. We got the bus here; Dad fancied it. We manged it without any problems. ‘Although Tower Bridge comes close. Funny that Angela lives in her very own Albert Bridge.’

‘Albert Bridge, Nova Scotia, Canada …’ I say. ‘How very far away that seems.’