“Don’t go too far, Katie,” I cautioned, “Karate’ll only be five minutes.”

Katie was two and fearless. I was 62 and fearful whenever I babysat the grandchildren. At half-term I had both grandkids to watch on my own. ‘Karate’, six, was my son Dan Black’s boy Daniel, the Fourth Dan in our family. He was in a shop across the way, where I could see the only door from where I sat.

“Okay, Gramps,” Katie answered me brightly, wheeling her toy pushchair around where I sat on a long circular bench in a broad covered walkway.

“Hello, Dan, mind if I sit?”

A silver-haired woman hovered next to me, holding a couple of shopping bags. Although she had changed much, the voice was unmistakable, as were those clear blue eyes.

“Of course,” I replied civilly, “it’s a free country, Mrs Evans.”

“I’m Connie, Dan, please?”

“Sure, Connie, please forgive an irascible old man.”

“A gentleman, Dan, not yet that old,” she smiled beautifully. She always was beautiful, I remembered.

Connie sat next to me, depositing her bags on the floor by her legs, which still looked good, I noticed. “We were best friends once, a long time ago ... And, like you, I miss your Mary.”

I started at the mention of my late wife. Even after five years the void she left was manifest. I never knew that my wife was acquainted with my childhood sweetheart. I met and married Mary in a different town and, although we moved back to my hometown shortly after, Mary and Connie would have revolved in quite different social circles. Besides, Mary never mentioned Connie, who I hadn’t spoken to since I left school at 16.

“You knew my Mary?”

“Yes. The Baptist Church Wednesday Club. We chatted all the time. Actually, we mostly talked about you, Dan. I even spoke to you at her funeral, but you were clearly distracted.”

“Sorry, Connie, that day’s a complete blur. I don’t remember seeing anyone.”

Connie squeezed my hand and kept hold of it. I had tears well up in my eyes, but fought them back, checking that Katie was still playing safe and ‘Karate’ occupied at the nearby shop.

“Sorry about Freddie, Con, I really liked him.”

I played Sunday golf with her husband Freddie Evans until seven years ago. He told me that he was diagnosed with a virulent strain of cancer and worried about leaving Connie alone after he passed. They couldn’t have any children, so she had no-one to care for her if she needed help. Connie’s ex-husband beat her almost to death while she was heavily pregnant with what would have been Freddie’s child. I promised him I’d keep an eye on her. I did, but never let her see me, of course.

Today, however, I was distracted, the grandchildren had taken up all my attention.

“Freddie was a nice man,” she remembered, squeezing my hand hard, “And you, Danny, were a nice boy, the best friend I ever had.”

I thought back to when we were at school, age 15, and I was sitting next to Connie as always. She had lived next door to me since we were born within months of one another. We learned to walk and talk together, I taught her bicycle riding, the precocious minx taught me kissing when we were 12. When my hormones eventually caught up with hers, I wanted to court her, but prevaricated and was pipped at the post.

Jimmy Logan tapped my leg under the desk, passing a note. I unfolded it, “You’re beautiful! Love, Rich xxx”, it read.

I looked to the other side of the room; Rich Roebuck gesticulated, pointing to Connie next to me. Simultaneously, Jimmy hissed, “Pass it on”, with a ventriloquist face.

I passed it on. Connie read the note, gave Roebuck a flash of her beautiful smile, passed a reply back and broke my heart into a million pieces.

I told her at break that Roebuck was a bully, with a history of cruelty and violence. Connie was angry; apparently Rich was a ‘dreamboat’ and I was ‘jealous’. They became an item and I was out in the cold.

They were the first in our set to marry and the first couple to divorce. That was just after the third time Connie was hospitalised and her friends finally persuaded her to leave him for good.