Jomier has no change for a parking meter. He walks along Askew Road, litter swirling around his ankles, past the halt and the lame, the second-hand furniture emporium and dusty vegetable racks outside the Pakistani stores, to the Co-op – the neon-lit supermarket that, like a mission station in the upper Congo, caters for the tastes of the middle class. Jomier buys a packet of Kettle Chips to get change from a £20 note. He returns to his Volkswagen Golf and drives to Queen’s Park. Tracey meets him at the door – tall, bouncy, the quintessence of physical fitness. Her skin is still tanned from the beaches of Queensland and the pores cleansed by regular sweaty sex with her boyfriend, Jeff. Jomier has seen a lot of Tracey over the past two years. He sees more of her than do Henry and Sandra. Tracey lives out. She arrives from Earls Court at eight thirty in the morning when Henry has already left for his office and Sandra is about to leave for hers. She leaves the house ten hours later when either Henry or Sandra returns. It is a long day for Tracey. Jomier admires her stamina. She is good with the children. But she is not their mother. She is paid to care for the children. Weekly. In cash.

Samantha kisses her grandfather with a brush of her lips on his cheek. She has her mother’s drive. Her mind is on the play-date with her friend Alexa. Ned stamps his feet up and down – a little war dance reserved for Grandpa. Jomier takes him by the hand. They walk towards the playground in Queen’s Park. Ned stops in doorways and runs up garden paths. Jomier waits. The objective is not to get to the playground but to look after the child. At the sound of a siren Ned shouts ‘Am’ulance!’ He is not good at pronouncing his bs but he is bright as a button, the star pupil at Top Totts, his nursery school – a future shoo-in for Westminster Junior School or Colet Court, those first rungs on the ladder to worldly success.

At the playground, Jomier sits on a bench watching the mothers and nannies and au pairs pushing their charges on the swings. There are sometimes one or two out-of-work fathers among them but today Jomier is the only man. The young women look at him uneasily: is he Ned’s father or grandfather? Jomier has friends who have children the same age as Ned – ensnared by determined young women with unresolved father complexes.

Over time Jomier has made some playground friends. There are nannies and au pairs who know Ned from his nursery school. Some know Tracey; some Alena; some both. The Australians and New Zealanders are friendly: they tell Jomier about their folks back home. The East European au pairs engage with Jomier to practise their conversational English.