She steps forward a little, and the light falls on her face. I stop walking. She’s unlike any prostitute I’ve ever seen down here. Dressed in what I would say is 1970s chic. Sort of rustic, semi-hippy flared jeans and a kind of smock top.

‘Would you like to come in for a while?’ she asks.

I do know the voice. And now I can see her, with her pixyish face and her fringe and rolls of curls on her shoulders, I am beyond all possibility of speech. It’s Felicity Kendal. Or to be precise, it’s Barbara from The Good Life.

She was always sexy, but not in the way most prostitutes aim for. This is a new development.

‘You—’ is all I can manage.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Me. I know. Wild, isn’t it? Got to make the most of my uncanny resemblance. So – how about it?’

I mumble something, and move off, head down, confused.

A few more steps, and another familiar voice calls out. I look up. Helen Mirren. What the fuck. Is this some kind of joke? Or a genius plan cooked up by a plastic surgeon?

I pick up the pace.

‘Do you want me to seduce you?’

Mrs Robinson. Every growing boy’s favourite from the movies. Is this a roll call of all my adolescent fantasies? Has somebody hacked into my head? Of course not. I’m a middle-aged man, and I’m not unusual, I suppose, in my erotic imaginings, or at least, those of my youth.

‘Hello, you.’ Very posh. Joanna Lumley, of course. New Avengers era.

It’s not a long alley, but each doorway has its occupant. My youthful longings and my middle-aged wistful yearnings. Debbie Harry. Emily Blunt. Scarlett Johansson. Beckoning to me. It’s too much.

I can’t possibly stop and take them up on their gentle come-hithers, can I? I’ve never been with a prostitute.

Jenny Agutter though.

No. No. I resist all of them. They can’t tempt me. The last one on the alley is Grace Jones. Nightclubbing era. She’s catering to a highly specific fantasy, I would say.

I emerge from the alley and pause, only to be approached by a pair of skinny women wearing not much, apart from a thick layer of make-up.

‘Didn’t fancy any of them, eh? Don’t blame you. It’s unnatural, innit?’

‘You want a real woman, don’t you?’

I shake my head, and keep moving.

Through Chinatown now, and I’m ready for the usual invitations for a massage. Accompanied by unmistakable gestures, showing how the massage will end.

Sure enough, a tiny Chinese woman plucks my sleeve. I look down at her, and she points to the herbal medicine shop where the massage would happen.

Won’t happen.

I swear to God the girl in the doorway is the one who was in that Bond movie.

I have to go home.

Winifred