I still don’t turn around. I am cursing myself for conjuring him up somehow, when I let that Polaroid fall from the photo album. I shouldn’t have looked at it. I shouldn’t have let my eyes fall on his face. I shouldn’t have thought about him since. And remembered how it was.

I daren’t turn around, but I have to.

‘Hello, Kemp.’

Kemp. The boy I knew at school; nicknamed by Third Year consensus after both of Spandau Ballet’s Kemp brothers for his zealous New Romantic phase – frilly shirts, pointy boots, the lot – showcased mostly at school discos, where he danced alone in corners. The man who is a brilliant photographer: landscapes, people, sunsets. Who spent most of his time at school holed up in the dark room of the Art Department. He’s still one of National Geographic’s most in demand. He has a camera on him now, looped from his shoulder in a suede bag.

‘I thought it was you.’

I haven’t seen him for seven years, but he looks almost exactly the same – dusty jeans, work boots, a T-shirt boasting where he’s been on his endless travels – Big Sur, apparently. Dishevelled was always his thing, when I finally became his friend, ten years ago, long after the New Romantic frills of school: scuffed boots and never-tucked-in-shirts and a series of terrible jackets even an Orwellian tramp would refuse, but it suited him. It still does. Today he is proper salt-and-pepper grey, weather-beaten around the edges; his face is craggy and crinkled, above a new and surprising beard, but when it crinkles into a slow smile those lighthouse eyes glow, just like they always did.

‘How are you?’

‘Good, thanks, really good, and you?’

I don’t want to look him in the eye as I don’t want him looking me in the eye. He is still beautiful; I am still ugly. Am I shaking? I hope I’m not shaking.

‘Great, thanks. Just getting a few shots of this place. Isn’t it amazing?’

‘Yes, it is,’ I say. I’ve tried not to think of him for the longest time, but I have. I always have. Kemp is why I can’t listen to one of Bonnie Raitt’s greatest hits. Kemp is why I don’t like looking at houseboats or going to Camden or green scarves. Kemp is why I hide that Polaroid where I can’t see it because if I see it, I’ll remember I loved him. ‘What a surprise.’

‘This place, or bumping into me?’

‘Both,’ I say.