I skipped on the spot, calibrating my breathing. I stretched metaphorical limbs and did some warm-up. Put some makeup on, wore confident clothes. Ran, jumped and dived.

Back into the universe I knew, with someone who used to know the woman I have been searching for.

I asked. 'Have you seen her?'

'Yes, yes. She is over here now.'

'Where?' I can only see shades and whispers of past lives. I lift the veil of many years and blow on the dust.

'Here, you blind bat.'

I look into his eyes for the mirror that's always carried the person I was.

'You don't need to rummage, my darling', he says. 'I kept you suspended in the formaldehyde of my memories, because I feared you'd change. I shouldn't have worried.'

I touch my cheeks and hair, and run my hands down my thighs. Talking about the missing woman has moved him and embarrassed me. The restaurant hums happily in the background. Outside, London taps on the windows with its rain fingers. Neither of us has eaten much.

'I can build a bridge for you with what I remember of the feisty redhead, and connect it to the woman you are. The bricks are the same, its arc is smooth and short. Would that help?'

I smile into my drink and laugh into the night. I am over a hundred of miles away from where I currently sleep but that restaurant table becomes my home for a brief while.

He was my friend and never let me down. Even nine years of silence do not push him away.

'I am sad for you, but not surprised. You can compress your springs but never bust the dampers', he says. Forever the car-mad person.

I am fascinated by his happiness and equilibrium. Perhaps I am even a little envious.

'You have changed, though. Grown.' Would we still race in those sportscars down B-roads, daring each other as we did that summer day of our Pre-Sensible life?

'No. Only in weight', he laughs. 'I'll race with you again. I have never met a woman who could hold a conversation about cars, like you, and beat me at handbrake turns.'

Handbrake turns! A mother of two.

'Oh yes. And controlled skidding too.'

I tell him all about it, holding nothing back. I have been ashamed of me for too long.

'What you need is someone to love you the way you are.'

That's why I was looking for the missing woman in his eyes.