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the ‘Lost’ notices pinned to two trees; one near the Palmers Green entrance gate, the other on the Winchmore Hill side. They have been there since the summer holidays and are now faded and rain-battered. Each displays a photograph of a tabby cat with three white paws and the words, ‘Gustav critically ill and needs his medication urgently’.
    Ewan, Oliver and Ross would once have been passionately interested in the cat Gustav. They would have wanted to know where he had gone, what his illness was, how he had caught it, what his medication consisted of and whether he would be given it from a spoon. I used to like these conversations that went off in bizarre but predictable directions and were endlessly repeated. I tried to interest my little boys in General Pinochet but there was always something more Gustav-like that they would rather discuss. Dictators are all very well but what about the lost cat? It took me a while to adjust to infantile preoccupations but they became firmly fixed so that now, in middle age, they are intertwined with adult ways of thinking and I can waste time wondering who let go of a stray balloon and where it might come to rest.
    In the dusk, the park becomes mysterious. Because it stands on a section of sloping valley that is not smoothly flat, it is impossible to take in the whole area at a glance. Pockets of land reveal themselves like photographic slides, subtly different from what came before, and people too can suddenly loom up. The evening dog walkers are a grumpy lot and sometimes menacing-looking. From an early age, Ewan was able to recite the names Dogo Argentino, Fila Brasileiro, Japanese Tosa, Pit Bull Terrier, and claimed he could restrain any one of them with a magic muzzle. I avoid eye contact with a character whose two Staffies are straining on choke leads and, as he comes towards me, direct my attention to the lake that has just come into view. The sky is yellow – not the yellow of pollution but a clear, primrose colour that happens as the year turns towards winter – and is reflected in the water. Birds float, weightless as black silhouettes on the surface. A man sits on a bench staring at the lake, his face, in profile, lit by the setting sun. He wears a dark-coloured cagoule, with high-visibility stripes down the sleeves and across the back. They catch the light. A bicycle is propped beside him. Something about him is familiar but I cannot place him. Then he moves. He searches in a pocket for his phone, half-rises from the bench, and I recognise the long neck and ungainly movements of Alan Child, Ross’s English teacher.
    An early firework goes off; a sudden flare, a bang. I hurry by with my head down.

11
    â€˜ WHY DID YOU tell me Jude’s mum was called Teresa? Her name’s Frances,’ I say to Ross, who has reappeared in my absence. He is perching on the boxes stacked in the hall and is eating baked beans from a tin with a spoon.
    â€˜Yeah, I know,’ Ross says.
    â€˜Then why did you say she was Teresa?’
    â€˜I didn’t.’
    â€˜You did. I distinctly remember Teresa. Teresa and Dirk. I thought she might be Roman Catholic.’
    â€˜What’s your problem?’
    â€˜None. I don’t have a problem. She might have been named after the saint. Actually there were two of them. Two St Teresas.’
    â€˜I’ve only ever heard of Francis. St Francis of Assisi? Didn’t he talk to birds, or something?’
    I stare at him. ‘That’s a totally different name. It doesn’t sound the same. I’d never have muddled them up.’
    â€˜You’re nuts, Mum.’
    I am convinced he is wrong. I did not misremember or mishear. Working with registers and documents, I know my Smiths from my Smythes. Ross is quite capable of saying names at random to keep me quiet. Maybe Dirk is not right either, though that would be unusually inventive on Ross’s part.
    â€˜Is it Dirk?’ I ask.
    â€˜Is