We ate pizza, sitting on the floor. Edgar had put on the soundtrack from Jane Campion’s The Piano as background music. I recognized it at once. An excellent choice – that was one of my favourite films, and the music was quite simply astounding. My mental portrait of Edgar was becoming clearer. Edgar was a man who easily managed to gain the respect of a whole group of adolescents, a man who showed such consideration for his daughter and had created with her a complicity based on mutual respect and teasing, a man capable of rolling in the mud in the morning and of being stirred by Michael Nyman’s exquisite piano playing in the evening, a man with a generous smile and dark, sad eyes, a man who must enjoy great success with women, but who seemed oblivious of his powers of attraction. That week, I’d seen the mothers simpering when they came to pick up their children . . . and ‘Edgar this,’ and ‘Edgar that’. I sensed in him a tumult of joys and sorrows. Isadora had spoken of her mother in the past tense. Who was he? What had he been through? I was increasingly intrigued. I was in turmoil, and I wanted to know more.

After only a few minutes, we were using the informal tu, and I’d begun to let go, to relax. Louis stayed in a corner of my mind, all the time. Everything brought me back to him. Allowing myself to eat with others was a big step for me. I told myself that these people were in my son’s precious notebook, they were important to him, and that Louis had implicitly approved our friendship because it was he who’d pointed me in the direction of Isadora and Edgar. By staying, I was entering my son’s world, in a way. I was aware that I was enjoying it a great deal.

At around ten o’clock, to my amazement, Isa announced it was her bedtime – whereas I used to have a nightly battle with Louis to get him to go to his room. She kissed us, and Edgar went to tuck her up.

I was left alone for a few moments. The contrast with my own living room was striking. My place was all designer chic, sterile, impersonal. But, here, the untidiness was part of the decor. Magazines lay on the floor, a few games too. The top of the solid wood sideboard was covered in dusty knick-knacks, but no one could blame those who lived there. I could see immediately that they had better things to do than dusting. They were busy living. Here, everything was vibrantly alive.

I got up and gathered my belongings.

‘Thank you again, Edgar, it was really delicious.’