“I smell?” said Sarah. “Lovely. Thanks.” She gave another forced laugh, but Veronica continued with renewed earnestness, fondness, the scent grabbing her lungs.

“I’ve always remembered that smell – mango and coconut. Your mum had those candles everywhere.”

“Oh,” said Sarah more carefully. “Yes. She still does. Good memory.”

“There you go!”

Sarah looked at Veronica then in a way that she couldn’t quite decipher, before shrugging off the strangely extended pause as though it was nothing. “Goodbye, George, lovely to have met you.” She air-kissed him on the cheek. “Bye again, Veronica.”

“See you soon Mrs Beckham.” Veronica said this cheerily, innocently, then leant forward to kiss David. “And you too, Mr Beckham. Don’t be late for school. Oh wait, wow, I’ve just heard it.”

“What?” asked Sarah.

“David, Beckham. Like David Beckham, the footballer.”

“Oh that’s brilliant!” exclaimed George, clapping David on the back. “I can tell my mates I know Beckham.”

“Except,” continued Veronica. “Sorry, David, but you strike me as more of a chess player. And you were so sporty, Sarah, I might have expected the real thing.”

David laughed. “Unfortunately you’re right, I’m no footballer,” he said.

His smile was as warm as ever, but it was with notable decision that he placed his hand on Sarah’s back and guided her towards the door.

Sarah

David T Beckham was in fact born Tennyson David Beckham, a gesture of reverence to his mother’s favourite poet. The more commonplace middle name was a concession to his father’s desire to bind just a hint of Jewishness to the son they had already agreed would be raised secular. But the two doting parents hadn’t accounted for the singular love of tradition, nor the determinedly unassuming nature of their artistically brilliant boy. By the time he moved into secondary school, Tennyson had been discarded in favour of the just-a-hint David, and David had reintroduced Shabbat prayers and kosher food into the Beckham household. When, just a year later, the eponymous footballer shot to stardom and David became subject to continual school-yard jibes – generally centred around the irony of such an un-athletic boy sharing a name with such a specimen of athleticism – David merely laughed at the incongruity, and continued on in his own passions, which were piano, drama, and of course his beloved art. He never told his growing group of faithful friends the history of the T initial, and stuck fast to a course of quiet self-possession that as he grew older disarmed men and women alike. After their first date, Sarah described him to Eliza as the most generous, kind and emotionally intelligent man she had ever met, not to mention handsome. To which Eliza obligingly mock-puked.

But David really was all of those things, and Sarah knew that he remained entirely comfortable in their decision for him to be the children’s primary carer, their means to let her fly. Besides, he loved his part-time position at the museum. And he had never once regretted the choice not to pursue a path of artistic illustriousness, despite the talent for it.