The taxi risk would be smaller this second time. Anyone looking for Andrew and Alison would be looking for Jason too. I’d accompany them to Heathrow, though I couldn’t see what use I’d be beyond bolstering up their courage. When I had seen them into the passport control queue I’d leave them, go back home and wait for Silver to return the next day. Andrew and Alison would have collected Jason from the hotel and, if everything had gone according to plan, we’d never see any of them again.

“We won’t know how to pass the time,” I said.

“Oh, yes, we will. This is our crossing point, remember? Life begins afterward.”

It had to be another go at university for both of us. This year we were too late for the October intake but some places would take you in January or we could postpone things till next year. Do some sort of course perhaps, or voluntary service overseas. Silver wanted to read social sciences, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t known that before. I wondered about agriculture. I knew the countryside, I enjoyed growing things. We both decided we had had enough of communal living, we’d have a single room somewhere that we’d share. If we could get to the same university or to colleges close together.

So we made firm plans for the Exodus and vague plans for when it was past. One afternoon, it was September 16, after we’d been sitting at a table outside a café in Clifton Road drinking cups of tea, then coffee, we trailed slowly home by way of Randolph Avenue to find Jonny’s van parked on a meter at the Castlemaine Road end and Jonny sitting in the cab, smoking a cigarette.

You hear a lot today about the prevalence in London of unmarked white vans. There are allegedly thousands of them about, no one knows who buys them or who owns them and there’s generally said to be some malign reason behind possessing one. None of this was thought of, as far as I know, eleven years ago. If Jonny’s white van, which he always kept immaculate, looked sinister to me, this was only because I associated it inevitably with him, and later came to be reminded of him by every white van I saw. He waved cheerfully at us and opened the driver’s door.

“Let us in, will you, mate? I need a word with Liv.”

I suppose Silver reasoned that she could come to little harm with the rest of us there. Anyway, he said yes, all right, whereupon Jonny got down, carrying two bottles of wine and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He preceded us up the path and Silver unlocked the front door.