I hardly gave him a second thought that night or the next day; in fact, by the time day three had come along I had forgotten him and for a moment did not recognise the man standing at my street door with a bunch of flowers when I got home from work. I presumed he was visiting some other person and passed him on the steps, head down, rootling in my bag for my keys.

‘What a short memory you have, Clara.’

I recognised his voice at once, but had to rootle also in my mind for his name; then decided not to use the name that I came up with in case I was wrong.

‘Goodness me,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘What a surprise.’

He held the flowers out towards me. They were startling yellow daisies.

‘Are they for me?’ It’s amazing how stupid I can be from time to time. He didn’t bother to answer. I fumbled them from his cool fingers. ‘Thank you.’ I laughed then. ‘Daft thing. I don’t think anyone has ever given me flowers before. Thank you. James.’ I tried the name for size. He didn’t object. That was something, anyway.

‘Will you come in and have a glass of wine? I’m afraid I don’t have any more serious drink.’

‘I’d really like that.’

I handed him back the flowers and scooped my fingers round and round the bottom of my bag until I caught the key ring and pulled it out. ‘See? It always tries to hide.’

I opened the door and stepped into the dim-lit hall. Somewhere up in the dark heights of the house someone, probably Maria Callas, was singing:

Ah fors’è lui che I’anima

Solinga ne’ tumulti

Godea sovente pingere

De’ suoi colori occulti.

Someone had their player on fortissimo.

I couldn’t blame them. I have always been a sucker for Traviata. Fortissimo.

‘Follow,’ I said to him. I put out my hand to guide him round the bend that led to the stairs to the basement. He clutched at it as if for a moment he thought he was going to drown, and kept holding on after we had come into the light of my untidy borrowed sitting room.

‘Nice,’ he said, looking round.

I pulled my hand away from his fingers and went across the room to open the French doors out into the garden.

‘I have a tree,’ I said with pride. The leaves were just bursting on the tall ginkgo. Three sides of the yard were protected, fortress-like, by high brownstone walls with higgledy-piggledy windows, the top ones reflecting the setting sun. The fourth side had a wattle fence up against which a straggly hedge struggled to look healthy.

‘Mine, all mine,’ I beamed. ‘Until the end of term, at any rate.’

‘It’s great. I really don’t know this part of the world very well.’

‘You weren’t at NYU?’

‘Harvard.’

Silly me.

A quell amor ch’è palpito

dell’ universo intero,

Misterioso, altero,

Croce e delizia al cor.