I was starting to get stressed when I discovered that, beneath its festive appearance, this event was a half marathon, that Budapest was a very hilly city, and my body was still battered from the football ordeal. Since the Budapest race wouldn’t be taking place until May, I’d have to create my own event. I suddenly had this pathetic vision of chucking coloured paints over myself and collapsing, exhausted, on a hilly street . . . Clearly, I was going to need help with throwing the paints and with my likely physical feebleness.

I asked Edgar to come with me. My mother – who never misses a trick – offered to come instead, sniggering with Charlotte in the hospital corridor.

‘Don’t be offended, Mum, but you’re not exactly built like a tank, and I’m going to need physical support. I think Edgar’s a much sounder option, that’s all.’

I went in to see Louis, congratulated him on all his sporting ambitions, which were news to me, and explained to him that I was relying on Edgar to stop me having a heart attack on the Hungarian capital’s famous Chain Bridge.

‘Edgar’s going to film me, and Granny Odette will show you the whole thing live, on the iPad. Grandma can also cheer me on – right, Grandma? – because I’ll have the headphones and mic on all the time.’

‘Yes, of course, pussycat,’ she replied, a little too enthusiastically.

*

Edgar threw himself wholeheartedly into his mission and took care of all the preparations. He explained that the coloured paints could easily be found in Passage Brady, the ‘little India’ district of Paris, because throwing paint was an ancient Hindu tradition: during Holi, the spring equinox festival, crowds of Indians paraded through the streets spraying coloured water over one another. Westerners had simply adapted the concept, adding a sporting dimension. No, the simple corn starch with natural dyes wouldn’t leave a stain on me, and no, we weren’t going to get ourselves banged up by the Hungarian police . . . ‘It’s all perfectly harmless, don’t worry.’

When we arrived in Budapest, we dropped our luggage off at the apartment I’d rented, two bedrooms of course, and Edgar asked me to wait for a couple of hours before walking to meet him at the foot of the Buda Castle Funicular – he had ‘a few details to sort out’.