THE OPENING PAGE FROM JESSICA - A ROMANTIC DRAMA OUT LATER THIS YEAR

‘Can’t you read?’ cried the old lady.

Contempt dripped from her watery eyes as she struggled towards me, bent double under the weight of her overcoat.

I pulled myself up and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, madam?’

My tormentor glared at me from under a hand-knitted bonnet and spat her reply. ‘Bird flu. There are signs all over the park.’

I hid the paper bag behind me and stared back at her like a defiant schoolboy. ‘I’m sorry. My mind was somewhere else.’

The woman shook her head, mumbled something under her breath, and shuffled off. As soon as she was out of sight, I emptied the bread onto the ground and screwed the paper into a ball. Then, turning up my collar, I hurried away through the crowd of squabbling ducks and geese gathering at my feet.

It was warm and bright but noisy inside the café - Christmas was in three weeks, and London was full of tourists. I needed peace to sort out my head, and after being served, I went to sit on the terrace outside. It was one of my favourite spots, and I held my steaming mug in both hands as I gazed down the length of the lake. A blustery wind was blowing dark clouds across the sky. Closer to the ground, the golden leaves of autumn swirled around the empty trees. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon, but it was as black as the night; I could already see the lights of the cars crossing Serpentine Bridge.

I took a mouthful of tea and set the mug on the table. Two months earlier, I had resigned myself to becoming a sad, middle-aged bachelor - back on my own again. Now, I was a hostage to fortune, no longer in control of my own emotions. Was it possible to love a woman but be in love with someone else? And what about the past? Is it a part of us that refuses to be left behind? Or another country forgotten as we travel on to new shores? I no longer cared.