The hell with that. Bracing against the wall of the stairwell, I managed to get one foot on top of the banister rail and lifted myself up. This was how I used to climb into the attic as a kid. I could see spiderwebs, and bits of unevenness in the ceiling paintwork that cast fine shadows from the landing window light. I pushed at the hatch. It was heavier than I remembered, and, evidently a long time undisturbed, had glued itself into place. But it came loose with a soft ripping noise.

I poked my head up into the attic. It smelled dusty but dry. I reached up to a switch mounted on a cross beam; the light, from a bulb dangling from a rafter, was bright but reluctant to spread far.

I set my hands on the edge of the frame. When I tried the last step—kicking off the banister rail and pushing up with my arms—I was suddenly aware of my greater bulk, and feebler muscles; I wasn’t a kid anymore. Just for a second it felt as if I wouldn’t make it. But then my biceps took the strain. I hauled my belly up through the hatch, and sat heavily on a joist that ran across the roof, breathing hard.

Boxes and trunks receded into the shadows like the buildings of a gloomy miniature city. There was a sharp smell of burning, as the dust on the bulb was incinerated. Looking down into the brightness of the house was like a vision of an inverted heaven. I was rarely allowed up here when I was small, and even as a teenager never allowed to fulfill my ambitions of turning it into some kind of den. But I had always loved the sense of remoteness I got when I passed out through the skin of the house into this other world.

I swung up my legs. The roof was low; I had to crawl over the boards I had nailed down over the ceiling insulation in my twenties, when it had emerged that fiberglass insulation wasn’t good for you. Soon my hands were filthy and my knees were starting to ache.