‘Excuse me, madam, is this your trolley?’ She swivelled round, rustling the jungle of dry leaves as she stepped clear. The young man addressing her was shaven-headed and wearing overalls in the store’s trademark colours of neon-orange and yellow. He had made a point of shifting her trolley out of the middle of the gangway where it had somehow drifted during her spying mission. ‘Were you looking for something in particular?’ He threw a worried glance at the yuccas, tugging at the lurid jacket, which was emblazoned with two lopsidedly pinned badges, one saying ‘Darren’, and the other ‘HERE TO HELP!’

‘No, thanks, that is…’ Esther cast a look up at the array of weedkillers, but finding it hard to concentrate now she feared Chris might come sauntering round the corner at any moment.

The young man was suddenly grinning. ‘It’s Dylan’s mum, isn’t it?’

‘Darren,’ Esther cried, the smile and the boy’s higgledy-piggledy teeth aligning with memories of the teenagers occasionally to be found lounging round her house on a weekend morning. ‘How are you?’

‘Yeah, not too bad, thanks. Going to Newcastle. Media and Politics.’

‘Wow. Well done. How lovely.’ Esther beamed at the boy, wishing she could be the mother of a son going off to Newcastle to do media and politics.

‘Dylan all right, then?’

‘Yes… well, he’s doing some travelling…’ Esther faltered, a rising hope of information falling flat.

‘Is he? Awesome.’

‘So, you’re not in touch?’ Esther ventured, it dawning on her properly how little she had known about Dylan’s London college life compared to the goldfish bowl of the early Cambridge school years that had preceded it.

‘He kind of dropped out of our group a while back, to be honest.’

‘Did he?’

‘Better get on now.’ Darren had started shooting glances up and down the aisle. ‘Say hi to him for me, yeah?’ He waved as he started to walk away.

‘There was a girl, Mei Lin – did you know her?’ Esther called, trotting in a bid to catch up with him, which was a challenge with her trolley.

Darren turned round to answer, continuing walking backwards and swinging his head. ‘Nope, sorry.’

‘Okay… but if there was anyone you could ask?’ The boy had reached the end of their aisle and Esther had to raise her voice. ‘I could give you my phone number, or…’ But with a cheery head-nod, he was gone.

‘Giving out phone numbers to young men now?’

‘Oh, my goodness… Chris… I…’

Chris Mews laughed heartily at his own joke, hoicking the large bag of ericaceous compost he was carrying higher onto one hip. Seen close up, he looked different from their dinner date, Esther observed: fresher faced, his brown eyes full of sparkle behind the dark-rimmed glasses. His clothes looked smarter too: a short-sleeved blue and yellow check shirt tucked into crisp, navy jeans.

‘Good to see you, Esther. Sorry I’ve been silent for a while.’