Any personal comment made her blush – she no longer had the white make-up to hide behind – and she felt the second wave of blood rush about her body and settle on her chest. There was nothing she could do about it; it betrayed her time and again, announcing her inner feelings to the outside world.

‘How are you? Do you live round here?’ he asked.

‘Thanks. Fine. No . . . Do you?’

‘Yeah, not far. Battersea. You’re a doctor, aren’t you, a psychiatrist . . . ?’

‘That’s right.’ She was flung back to the contradictions of her youth: the self-assurance masking the vulnerability, the cliques, the passions, the stuttering, that heavy weight of the future brimful with possibility.

‘Sally and I always thought you were going to be prime minister!’ he said. She laughed. Had they really? ‘But I’m not surprised you’ve gone into people’s heads; you were always curious. And kind.’

The flush on her chest burned again. ‘And you?’ she asked. ‘What do you do?’

She switched off after the letters ‘IT’. Always curious and kind. Dougie Thompson. Sally Pea. Deborah Jenkins. How had she lost touch with everyone? Where had all the years gone?

‘Did you hear about Sally?’ he was saying, still smiling at her.

‘No, I’ve lost touch with lots of people . . .’

‘She just won a hundred and fifty grand on the lottery.’

‘What? No way!’ Emma shrieked. It was incredible. He was laughing, they both were. He had always had that effect on her, relaxing her in a highly unrelaxing way. He moved a little closer as another stream of bikes passed by.

‘Honestly, that girl!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘She’s throwing a huge birthday party – she’d kill me if I told her I saw you and didn’t ask you. You’ve got to come.’

‘That’s right! Her birthday. December 14th!’

He was getting his phone out of a bicep pocket. His skin was smooth and brown. ‘What’s your number, Dr. Davis?’

‘Robinson,’ she corrected, and immediately wished that she hadn’t; she’d brought a kind of otherness into their conversation. This was no place for husbands. It wasn’t fair that a man could keep his mystery but a woman had to be branded. She watched him tap the number into his phone as she told him the digits, noticing and remembering his ease of movement, the grace of his fingers and how, to her delight, someone had once mistaken them for a couple. She wondered whether he remembered that night at Jamie Storm’s party, how they’d talked all evening on the sofa and their legs had been touching for hours. She never knew whether he was aware of it or not.

What a fool she was; of course he wouldn’t remember. That was thirty years ago.

‘Yes, you’re married, I knew that. You’ve got kids, haven’t you?’ he asked.

She stared at him. Her head went blank. The blush drained away.

‘Yes,’ she heard herself say. ‘And you?’