The train groaned again as it carried James and his unknown companions through an empty station. Although sleepers didn’t take on passengers, they did seem to stop for frequent short rests, as if worn out by galloping up the country. Like Dad carrying the kids on his shoulders, across the Downs, grumbling cheerfully. ‘Oh, mind your back, Alan!’ Mum fretting, to no avail. ‘Honestly, watch your father’s back!’ ‘I am watching it,’ said James, ‘I’m right on top of it!’ Sally screamed with laughter. It was her favourite thing her little brother had ever said. All of them had laughed for ages, in fact – even Mum, who often didn’t come out on those excursions because, as Dad explained, she got very tired doing things around the house and sometimes needed a bit of time to herself.

James took a slug of the second beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He tried to delete the memory like a file on a computer desktop, drag it over to the bin. It wasn’t his intention to spend the whole of these last few hours wallowing in This Is Your Life mode. If his life were worth sentimentalizing like that, he wouldn’t be finishing it this way. But it was hard not to think of them at all, of course it was. Especially Dad; this trip was the one they’d always done together.

The tradition had begun as early as schooldays. James’s dad was a meteorologist. That was the word James and Sally both learned when they were very young – because if they said ‘weatherman’, their classmates thought he must be on TV. Alan Chiltern was not on TV but, as their mother often liked to remind them, he was more important than those people; he was the one who looked at the satellite pictures and actually worked out what was going to happen in the skies. One evening during the Easter holidays, Dad had announced that he was off to Edinburgh the following week; there was a retirement dinner for one of his old colleagues.

‘Can I come?’ asked Sally. It took James’s breath away, the boldness of it. Sally was fourteen by now; she wore lipstick, her bedroom boasted its own TV and its walls had disappeared behind posters. She talked extensively about a band called New Kids on the Block – often implying, although James didn’t really understand how this could be the case, that she was on close personal terms with them.

Mr Chiltern raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t honestly see why not!’ he said.

James took a deep breath. The kettle screamed in the kitchen; Mum was making gravy. He was almost too nervous to get the words out; he prepared himself, even as he voiced his wish, for disappointment. To be told he was too young.

‘And could … I mean – what about me?’ he asked.