The woman smiled. “I'm sorry to disturb you,” she said. “I meant to phone you first, but I lost your number.”

So she knew him. “Not at all,” he reassured her, gesturing for her to enter. “This is quite convenient. I was doing nothing.” Actually, he thought, I was doing something. I was thinking about my life and how I need to meet a woman, and lo and behold … But that could not be said, of course; like most of our thoughts, William reflected, which can be thought but not said.

The visitor stretched out a hand. “Angelica Brockelbank.”

William shook her hand. It was soft to the touch. “Of course.” Angelica Brockelbank?

“Would you like tea?” he blurted out. Tea was so convenient. Not only was it an appropriate and immediate response to any crisis - 'Sit down and I'll put the kettle on' - but it was also a tool for social stalling. Tea would allow this encounter to proceed to the next stage, which William hoped would be the stage of discovering who Angelica Brockelbank was.

But then it came back. Angelica Brockelbank - of course! She had run the bookshop next to William's first wine shop in Notting Hill, a good fifteen years ago. They had seen a certain amount of one another and then, when William had moved to larger premises, they had lost touch. She had been beautiful then, but William had been married at the time - as had she - and had admired her from a respectable distance. He wondered now whether she was still married, and whether there might just be a chance … He hardly dared think about it.

“It's wonderful to see you again, Angelica,” he said with renewed confidence. “After all those years. How's the bookshop doing?”