Until I was pushed away from him by a young woman who herself then began to shout at him, about her friend Heidi who had been crushed to death on the inside of a lorry that had turned left without indicating.

‘Sorry!’ he said. ‘Sorry!’ He must have been twice the weight of the woman who was prodding him in the chest. She backed away from him a step and scowled at him, and he took the opportunity to ride off, looking behind him to check that neither of us were following him. She wandered over to a bike that was lying on the pavement and picked it up, holding a hand over her eyes when I walked up to her.

‘Thank you,’ I said to her. ‘And I’m so sorry about your friend.’

She lowered her hand and squinted at my bike. ‘I’m sorry about your friend.’

I have no friend called Sam who died in a bike accident. But it felt like I did when I had the cyclist’s T-shirt bunched in my fist.

She was still looking at my bike.

‘This isn’t my bike I’m riding,’ I told her. ‘Just so you know, it doesn’t belong to me.’

She wiped her eyes and tried to smile. ‘It’s very colourful,’ she said. She had a basket on her bike, containing a handbag and a pair of heels.

‘You look shaken up,’ I said. ‘Let me buy you a drink. Come on. I insist.’

In the pub Mary told me about the interview she had just been to, to work as an intern at a major record label, a job that came with no salary except a ten-pound per diem for a sandwich and bus fare. She had got the ‘job’. I asked her how she was going to afford to do her job.

‘I work in a bar and I won’t eat food.’

‘Or sleep.’

‘No, I won’t do much of that either.’

When she told me about her band, and how she thought they might be about to be offered a record deal, the only philanthropic thing to suggest was that she move into our place. Only above Gregg’s can a person be free to dream and create in this city. She was suspicious, but took my number, and said she’d come round the next day to take a look.

The next day there was a knock at the back door. Mary was standing there, smiling, in a dress and trainers, next to a tall young man with lots of hair falling across smooth cheeks. ‘This is my friend, Nathan,’ she said. ‘He’s just here in case you turn out to be a pervert.’

‘Hi, Nathan,’ I said, ‘what a sensible precaution,’ and I shook his hand.