Why has my mother kept all of this? What good does it do? But I think I know why — because she knew that one day I’d come here and climb into the attic. It seems to me, as I sit here looking at the debris I’ve left in my wake, that perhaps I’ve lived too much in the present. I haven’t thought of any of these things for years and yet once they were life itself. I painted my surfboard, washed my fins (and, yes, I would have liked webbed feet) and collected stones and shells. I slept each night with Tub in my arms until I threw him on the floor worrying about my heart breaking.

I pick up the bundle of reports and the near-perished fins, and weigh them in my hands and think, That boy is me. Both boys are me. Merboy and Special are both me. When I left this house I turned my scarred back on Merboy and erased Special, the crazy-eyed, quiet boy who went to school in Exeter. I went to London and became John the carpenter and then all three of us turned our backs on my mother.

Last summer Ian and I worked on a deck in Bath, at the back of a beautiful Georgian mansion on Lansdown Hill, which overlooked the spires and crescents of the city, the round spin of the Circus and sweep of Royal Crescent. They were halcyon days, days of sun and light and easy companionship. Ian and I hadn’t worked together on a job for years, just the two of us. We designed a deck of Bath stone and cherry, decorated with scrolls of wood and curls of metal. I’d forgotten what it was like to work with Ian — his strength and vision, his perfectionism. We worked without the need to speak, passing each other planes and chisels, cauls and sash clamps, held awkward joints for each other as we drilled, lifted wood and iron staircases together, weights that would normally take four men to move. Each day we ate lunch, provided by Sonja from the deli, on the growing deck — sandwiches of pastrami and dill gherkins, plates of asparagus wrapped in pancetta with crusty rolls, or bowls of tiny fresh artichoke hearts dipped in mayonnaise. We sprawled in shorts, tanning our bare chests, fingers greasy with food, and each day when we finished we’d stop for a pint in the garden of the Crown Inn in Kelston on the way home.

I was routering the supports of the steps one afternoon, when Ian touched me lightly on the shoulder. I looked at him and his expression was unreadable. He signed as I stood in the hammering heat watching his black fingers moving against the pale, untreated cherry. They’ve done it again. They blew up a town in Ireland. Omagh. They blew up the shopping centre. I'm sorry. He’d heard it on the radio as I was shaving wood. Sweat was running down my back but I began to shiver. Over his shoulder I looked at Bath’s extraordinary, timeless skyline, at the cathedral, the Roman baths, the church spires, and I imagined I could hear the dripping of buildings.