‘That’s true enough. I guess what I’m saying is . . . just don’t end up being a nobody like me, that’s all. You’re young and clever, funny and kind. Do something with your life. Be a somebody!’

‘That sounds like the kind of thing Stuart would say. Anyway, you are a somebody,’ he protested. ‘You’re my dad! And besides, I’d much rather end up like you than Stuart.’

‘I should think so, too,’ I said, managing to restrain myself from high-fiving all the other passengers. ‘I like to think that if I’ve taught you anything at all, it’s to maintain a healthy suspicion of anyone who wilfully chooses to play The Best of Huey Lewis and the News in public.’

Dylan smiled again and we settled back into thoughtful silence while the seats around us slowly emptied and we waited for our stop to come.

Sunday September 30th

Last Night, Sleepwalking . . .

I broke my arm

when I fell off a fence.

Got taken off

in a somnambulance.

Dave brought me back inside at 4am. He was smoking in his garden when he heard a noise from over the fence. He peered over and saw me in my dressing gown. I was talking to someone inside my writing shed, as I rattled the door and angrily fumbled with my keys. He told me all this after he’d guided me back to my kitchen and made me a cup of tea.

Stress and anxiety can contribute to sleepwalking, according to Dave, and he advised me to take it easy. He says Mrs McNulty thinks it has more to do with the presence of a full moon but we agreed that seems unlikely.

October

Monday October 1st

Versions, He Wrote

I

The record was lodged

deep down his throat:

REM’s first album.

Murmur, she wrote.

II

Hairy hobbit foot,

severed. No note.

Who was behind this?

Mordor, she wrote.

III

Stuffed in his mouth,

an inspirational quote:

‘Happiness in execution’.

Goethe, she wrote.

I locked up the shed and came back into the house.

I lay on the sofa. The cat lay on me. A youthful Angela Lansbury appeared on the screen. I looked at the television guide: it was an old version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. She was in the role of Sybil Vane. I started watching the film but must have drifted off. She was on stage, singing old music-hall numbers – ‘My Old Dutch’, ‘When Father Papered the Parlour’, ‘A Little Bit of Cucumber’.

The audience swayed along in time, loving it. All of a sudden, the music stopped and the lights went down. Ghostly chimes began to ring out. The band struck up again but this time their accompaniment was more sinister and brooding. Sybil Vane turned and fixed her eyes on me, and began to sing:

Take a little walk to the edge of town

Go across the tracks

Where the viaduct looms

Like a bird of doom