She laughed too and replied that she hadn’t imagined any such innuendo, but she really couldn’t. After a pause, she finally said, ‘To tell you the truth, I’m having a little party at my place tonight for my birthday – it was two days ago – and, if you’d like to come, you’d be welcome.’

‘Thank you for the invitation, Charlotte – I’m deeply touched. Truly. But don’t feel you have to ask me, and don’t take your work home. You already put in so much effort at the hospital. No need to lumber yourself with your patients’ depressed mothers . . . Happy birthday, all the same!’

‘Thank you . . . You know I’m asking you because I want to. But, don’t worry, I’m not hitting on you!’

We laughed again, and Charlotte insisted, assuring me that it would do me good and saying her place was just around the corner. She’d known that, like her, I lived close to the Saint-Martin canal, as did probably more than a hundred thousand Parisians, but she hadn’t realized we were almost neighbours. She gave me her address, which turned out to be three streets away. If I felt bored or out of place, I could leave at any time; it would be a simple little dinner with friends, buffet style, people would be dropping in all evening. Then she added, with that typical twinkle in her eye, ‘Let your hair down, it’ll do you good – and I’d love you to come!’

I said yes. She said something like, ‘Great, so see you around eight,’ and I watched her slight form ride off on her scooter.

Shit – why had I accepted? What the hell was I going to be able to talk to all those strangers about? I looked at myself in my bedroom mirror and felt a surge of panic. This would be the first time I’d gone out since Louis’s accident. I began inspecting myself by rolling up my trousers. I rolled them down again immediately, realizing with horror that my legs were more like those of Chewbacca than Miss World. My grey roots were beginning to show. At Hégémonie, I’d have been pelted with stones – or at least rotten tomatoes.

What time was it? Four fifteen. I had three and three-quarter hours to do something about it and make myself presentable. I started to thank the god of beauty salons that I lived in Paris and not in one of those small towns where everything closes at six. I still had time to get my legs waxed, buy some flowers to thank Charlotte, get my hair done and camouflage my wrinkles beneath one of the foundations that had been gathering dust in my cupboard for a month.