I’d taken the bike down the alley to the backyard and I opened the kitchen door to find her standing at the stove, stirring something in a pan. When she saw me, her face went from pleasure to concern in half a beat.

‘Did something happen?’ she said, wiping her hands and coming over to me.

‘Fell off my bike,’ I said. She made a sympathetic noise and took my backpack from me. ‘Well, I say that, but I was essentially forced off it by some tosser who thought I was Dennis Weaver.’

‘Oh no!’ she said, and it made me smile, despite the fact that most parts of my body were hurting right now. One of the things about being married that had never stopped thrilling me was the near-telepathy over cultural references.

She came over and turned my palms round, then gently kissed the grazes. It hurt but I managed not to wince.

Anya helped me wash the grit out, as I told her all about what happened, and then she gently applied antiseptic. Her brow was sweetly scrunched, as if she was doing highly skilled surgery.

My right knee ended up with a large plaster across it, which was bound to come off straight away, but I let her apply it anyway.

‘So,’ she said, as she put away the first aid kit and washed her hands. ‘Did you get a look at the guy’s face? The one in the car?’

‘No, not really,’ I said wearily. ‘He had on a baseball cap and sunglasses. Anyway, it all happened …’

I paused.

‘What?’ said Anya, turning back to me.

‘It’s probably nothing,’ I said. ‘Just that I had an encounter with a parent today and he was a bit aggressive.’ I filled her in on what had happened.

‘Do you think it was him who knocked you off your bike?’ she said. Her back was to me and she turned on the gas under the pan again, before starting to stir. ‘You really didn’t see him? Can you describe him at all?’

I thought about it for a moment, touched by how seriously she was taking this.

‘No,’ I said after a few moments. ‘I can’t believe he’d do that. I mean, it really was nothing.’ I paused again. ‘It’s just that …’

‘What?’

I blew air out through my mouth. ‘I don’t know, Anya, he just said this really strange thing about knowing me. I swear I’ve never spoken to the man before.’

‘Knowing you?’

‘Yeah … sort of like we’d had a beef before.’

We were both silent for a moment, thinking about this.

‘Do you think he might be confusing you with someone else?’ said Anya, turning to me now.

I shrugged. ‘Who knows?’