‘You used to go to Gresham?’ I couldn’t believe it. Where was I all this time? Sleeping in a box in the cellar? Why had I known none of this?

‘You know I did. For the dance.’ He was right. I did know it. ‘She was giving me a lift. So I got myself to their flat. Where was it? Somewhere in Belgravia?’

‘Chester Square. And it was a house, not a flat.’

He looked at me, understanding fully the significance of my exact recollection of the detail. ‘Anyway, we’d loaded up the cases and then, as we set off, Serena said-’ he paused, with a deep sigh, back in that smart little red two-seater that I once knew so well. ‘She said, “Now this is going to have to be very carefully stage-managed” and she started to list what I was to do when I got there, how I was to behave, what I should and should not say to her mother when she greeted me, how I should manage her father’s questions, what I should mention to her brother and her sisters. On and on she went, and as I listened I thought this isn’t for me. I don’t want to go somewhere where I’m a liability, where things have to be monitored so my hosts don’t regret asking me, where I need to take a course before I can get out of the car, where I’m not a welcome member of the party.’ He stopped, out of breath, and waited until he had caught up with himself.

‘I can see that,’ I said. Which I could.

He looked at me as if he suspected me of triumphing in his confession. ‘I didn’t face it at the time but, if I’m honest, I think that was when I knew it wouldn’t work. Not in the long term.’

‘Did you say anything to her?’

The question made him slightly uncomfortable. ‘Not then.’ He had recovered. ‘Later.’

‘But it was the end from that moment?’ What did I want from him?

‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. The point is I realised that if I ever did marry, I wanted it to be into a family that would hang bunting off the balconies, send up fireworks, take out ads in The Times, not roll their eyes in unforgiving silence at my unsuitability. You saw what that guy who married the youngest sister had to go through. He was an unperson by the time they’d finished with him.’

‘Did Suzanne’s family put out the flags?’ This sounds rather unkind and I suppose it was, but I was so filled with jealousy that I felt I could have killed him. I’d say he got off pretty lightly.

His smile became rather wry. ‘The trouble was you lot had spoiled me. I didn’t like you or your world, and I didn’t want what you had, but when I tried to go back to my old crowd I’d lost the taste for their tastes. I had become like mad old Lady Belton, too snobbish, too aware of unimportant differences and needing to be stage-managed, myself.’

‘So we repelled you from our world and spoiled you for your own.’

‘In a nutshell.’

‘Serena must have got married almost straight away? When you and she were finished.’

‘Not long afterwards.’ He thought about this. ‘I hope she’s happy.’

I sipped my tea in a vague, and vain, attempt to soothe my troubled spirits. ‘Not very, I would guess. But with her kind it’s hard to tell.’

Once more he was watching me, with all the care of an anthropologist making a study of a rare and unpredictable beast. ‘Are you enjoying it at all? This Proustian return? It’s your past as much as mine.’

‘Not much.’

‘What does your…’ He hesitated. ‘I hate the word “partner.” What does she make of it all?’

‘Bridget? I don’t think she’s interested. It’s not her scene.’ This last was true, but the statement before it wasn’t completely. Still, I couldn’t be bothered to get into all that. ‘It doesn’t matter either way,’ I continued. ‘We’ve broken up.’

‘Oh dear. I hope it’s coincidental.’

‘Not completely. But it was coming anyway.’

He nodded, insufficiently curious to pursue it. ‘So, who’s next?’

‘Candida Finch or Joanna Langley. Joanna, probably.’

‘Why?’

‘I always had rather a crush on her.’

He smiled at my revelation. ‘Obviously, something we shared.’

‘Do you remember the famous Ascot appearance?’

‘How could anyone forget it?’

‘Were you with her then?’ I asked breezily. ‘I know you weren’t in her party when you got there. Didn’t you come with the Greshams?’ Another crunch, hard down on that loose and aching tooth.

He frowned, concentrating. ‘Technically. But I don’t think I was “with” either of them at that stage. That all came later.’

I winced. ‘I used to think you and Joanna made rather a good pair.’

He nodded. ‘Because we were both common and on the make? And I wouldn’t get in your way?’

‘Because you were both modern and in touch with reality, which is more than you could say for most of us. The big learning curve we were all facing wasn’t going to be necessary for you two.’

‘That’s generous.’ He acknowledged my courtesy with a polite nod from the neck. ‘But we weren’t as synchronised as we must have looked from the outside. I was very ambitious, remember.’

‘I certainly do.’

My tone was perhaps more revealing than I had intended and it made him flick his eyes up at me. ‘And in those early months of the whole thing I still hadn’t decided what I did, or didn’t, want from all of you. Joanna wanted nothing. Except to escape from her mother and hide. She may not have known it, at least not consciously, not then. But it was in her and of course she found out the truth before very long.’

‘As we all know.’

Damian laughed. ‘As we all know.’

‘And when she did, it was clear you weren’t going in the same direction.’

He nodded in acceptance of this, although I could see, each time I interrupted, that it troubled him not to set his own pace. Actually, I fully understand how annoying this can be, those tiresome, unfunny men at dinners who heckle a speaker, destroying the jokes, but not replacing them with anything amusing of their own. Even so, I wasn’t prepared to listen to Damian’s cleaned-up and sanitised account of these events, without the odd comment. He continued, ‘When you do see her and you’ve finished your snooping, I’m interested to learn what she feels about all that time now. I look forward to hearing when you’ve tracked her down.’

This was the question that was troubling me. Of all the women on the list she was the one with the least information. ‘You haven’t given me a lot to go on. To find her.’

Damian accepted this. ‘Her name doesn’t bring up much on the Internet. The Ascot story, of course, and some other early stuff, but nothing after the divorce.’

‘Divorce?’

‘In 1983.’ I must have looked solemn for a moment. He shook his head, clucking his tongue as he did so. ‘Please don’t let’s pretend it’s a shock. The wonder is that they got fourteen years out of it.’

‘I suppose so. What was the husband called again? I forget.’

‘Kieran de Yong. You’ll find there’s plenty about him.’

‘Kieran de Yong.’ I hadn’t thought of that name in so long, but it still had the power to make me smile.

Ditto Damian. ‘I used to get a glimpse of him at the odd city feste, but he always studiously ignored me. And I haven’t seen anything of Joanna, in print or person, since they split.’ He spoke musingly. ‘What do you think his real name was?’

‘Not Kieran de Yong.’

He laughed. ‘It might be Kieran. But I doubt it was de Yong.’

Now I too was trying to remember those headlines and that curious young man. ‘What was he? A hairdresser? A modelling agent? A dress designer? Something that chimed with the zeitgeist of the day.’

‘I think you’ll be surprised. Most people get less from the future than they expected but some people get more. We’ve got an address for him. They should have given it to you.’

I nodded. ‘If they’ve split up, will he know where to find her?’

‘Of course he will. They’ve got a son.’ He paused. ‘Or I have. Anyway, even if he doesn’t he may provide a lead. In any case I should start with him because we haven’t come up with an alternative.’