I had to conceal my all-consuming need. Stiffen my sinews and learn from her. I was phoning her far more often than was healthy. Desperation is all very well in the young but, like a short skirt, it’s not a good look for a seventy-year-old.

In May I lost two of my pupils when their families moved out of London. I knew Azra disapproved of my tutoring but I’d been particularly fond of those boys. They’d made me laugh, and I missed their company. So I asked her if she needed help with any of her various jobs.

‘I wouldn’t want any money. I just want to be useful.’ My voice cracked with self-pity. ‘It would get me out of the house and stop me brooding.’

Azra had a young friend called Shania, who ran a florist’s shop in Dalston. I also knew Shania because I’d taught her at school. I liked her a great deal; she’d been a serious, single-minded girl who’d set her sights on floristry, even at that early age, and now ran her own business, supplying the local gastro-pubs and hipster hangouts. She also did the usual weddings, funerals and home deliveries. Azra, with her van, helped her out when she was busy.

Azra said we could do it together. It would be fun, and I could sit in the van and watch out for the bastard traffic wardens.

I was feeling strangely weightless that day. I’d hardly slept, and then was plunged into a dream where I fell off a cliff while my mother stood at the top, her mouth gaping in a silent scream. I only remembered this when I stepped into the back room of the florist’s. Shania stood there, poking carnations into a floral ‘DAD’ that took up half the table.

I’d also woken to upsetting news about my daughter. Greg had sent one of his terse, formal emails, this time about renewing the house insurance, and had added a PS, saying our daughter had split up with her long-term partner, Freyja. This had thrown me into confusion. Why hadn’t Lucy told me? Why her dad rather than me? Did she think I’d be too upset? Was she unhappy, or was it her decision to leave her girlfriend? Was she planning on quitting Reykjavik and coming back to England? I’d tried to phone but only got her voicemail. She worked at a TV studio and switched her mobile off when they were recording.

All in all, everything felt disconnected that morning, a jolt away from reality. My nightmare was still a taste in my mouth. I looked at the floral ‘DAD’, lying on Shania’s work-table. It was a hot day and the fan was whirring; DAD’s white petals shivered as if they were aware their life was to be extinguished. I remembered that time, a month earlier, when I’d been the imposter at a stranger’s funeral. How I’d felt awkward, but oddly invigorated.

Azra was chatting to Shania as she collected bouquets to load into the van. They were propped against the wall, sheathed in Cellophane and bound with raffia. Sachets of plant food were sellotaped to them like little colostomy bags. Slotted between the stalks were cards bearing messages of love, congratulations and condolence, written in Shania’s beautiful copperplate handwriting. At school she’d been top of her class at art.