Leaving the van in the McDonald’s car park she walks a few metres down the road to a supermarket, checks her bank balance at the ATM and takes out her last £100, using some of it in the store to buy toiletries, underwear and a bottle of hair tamer that promises to ease her frizz. She takes a bus towards the Harbourside, exiting beside the M-Shed Museum. Unlike the canalside in Honor’s part of Hackney Wick, which has steadfastly resisted gentrification, at Harbourside you can barely move for artisan coffee shops or vegan bakeries selling four-quid loaves. The things that give harbours their proper quality – namely boats – have been relegated to a section on the eastern side of the Floating Harbour near Redcliffe Bridge. Heading east she soon leaves the cafés behind and the further she goes, the scruffier and more anarchic the view becomes. Ten minutes’ walk from the M-Shed the towpath narrows, its tarmac coat split and pitted and charming in a rackety way, like an old man in a ragged overcoat sunning his face on a bench, and a modest tent city reveals itself, the bivvies lined up along the walls of an abandoned factory. There a handful of inhabitants warm themselves on a giant brazier. How inviting it looks! A sudden reminder of the magical parts of her childhood. Push comes to shove, I can buy a cheap tent and stay here, Honor thinks.

The Helene sits at berth not far from the bridge, a forty-five-foot steel huller of pre-credit-crunch vintage, with a semi-trad fit-out. It is 8.45 a.m. and smoke is drifting up from a wood burner below deck, the chimney liner worn from many years of use suggesting the Helene is a proper live-onboard, not a hobbyist vessel or a rich person’s plaything. She calls out. A moment later a tousled head appears in the hatch and a windburned face looks up at her and smiles, exclaiming, ‘You’re Bill’s friend!’

Honor introduces herself, wishing her hair looked better and that there were no stains on her clothes and that they weren’t so obviously from a charity shop.

The man introduces himself as Alex Penney, and making a sweeping motion with his hand, says, ‘I’ve just put the kettle on and done the washing up. Come aboard and we’ll celebrate with a cuppa.’

They chat about boats for a while. Alex is perhaps late forties, fit, with an air of playfulness and a bargee’s hard-working, sausage-fingered hands.

‘She’s a beauty,’ says Honor, looking around. ‘You named her after Helen of Troy?’

He smiles and raises his eyebrows.

‘The classical education didn’t go completely to waste then. I’m a bit rusty, now, though,’ Honor says, taking the seat Alex offers her, folding her arms across her chest to make the egg stain on the shirt less visible.