Two days later I was on live lunchtime news. ‘Do you think you’ll ever find her?’ ‘[Yes, I already have.] I hope so.’ ‘What will she think of you?’ ‘[She’ll be appalled.] I hope she’ll understand.’ ‘Will she be surprised you’ve spent so long hunting for her?’ ‘[She’ll think I’m a mad stalker, barely one level up from a rapist.] I suppose so, after all, it has been seven years.’

My responses were addressed to both the interviewer and the audience at home, and also of course to the unknown mother. A stereo of double and triple entendres that exhausted me, added to which everything was in a foreign language. However, in some way this helped, since at least the French media personalities who interviewed me were unknown to me, and I was completely unimpressed by their celebrity. It all felt like a dream, a parallel universe where I was recognized in the street and my mobile phone never stopped ringing. As soon as I returned to England I stepped back once more into my true identity as a nobody.

The unknown mother had asked for time to come to terms with the news. Perhaps in the future she would talk to me, but for now I continued on my media treadmill. France Culture, a radio station equivalent to Radio 4 in the UK wanted to interview me. The producer and I, accompanied by her intern, a young girl on work experience, walked to Parc Monceau. We meandered through the artificial landscape of lawns and ruined follies looking for somewhere to sit amidst the countless Philippino nannies chattering away on their mobile phones, as their pale white charges played around them, taking care not to dirty their beautiful clothes. We found a bench overlooking a glade where some older ladies were practising t’ai chi, and began to talk. We sat there for two and a half hours, during which I used every word of my rusty French ‘A’ level vocabulary. The t’ai chi ladies left, and a handsome young Rasta with loose trousers and a cutoff T-shirt took their place on the lawn before us and began to practise his karate moves, handstands and balances, his T-shirt falling upwards to reveal a finely muscled torso. I continued to mumble about parental bereavement to the insistent microphone held under my nose, but suddenly it was all too much for the intern. Silently and abruptly she left our bench and introduced herself to the Rasta with a few rudimentary cartwheels. Soon – sooner than one could have believed possible – she was lying on her back on the grass, the Rasta’s head on her bare stomach, stroking his matted hair with a loving hand. The producer and I sat astonished on the bench and tried to focus on the interview, muffling our giggles.