He had just started high school when he learned of Godrevy Lighthouse. One day, while browsing the books on his mother’s bookcase, he found a slender volume called To the Lighthouse. He’d not noticed it before and quickly pulled it from the shelf. There were no pictures, and there wasn’t much of a story either — even the cover painting was of a girl in a red skirt and not of a lighthouse. But slipped inside the book was a postcard. It depicted a sea scene with a cloudy sky, calm waters, and in the rosy light of dusk or dawn, a magnificently isolated lighthouse called Godrevy. The postcard was unused. He took the book and postcard to his mother, and not knowing what to say, simply held both up for her to see. Her face opened into a smile. She told him how she and his father, on their trip to Britain before he was born, had driven down to Cornwall where they saw the Godrevy Lighthouse. This was the lighthouse used by Virginia Woolf in her novel.

‘Such a wonderful trip that was,’ she said.

She had gazed at the postcard for a long time — Andrew could see the happy memories in her face — before replacing it in the book. Then she had a change of mind, for she retrieved the postcard and handed it to him. ‘You keep it,’ she said.

Godrevy Lighthouse became the lighthouse of his dreams. Like lighthouses throughout the world, it had been automated for decades, but he didn’t let that spoil his imaginings. Later he learned that a number of lighthouses had been converted to meteorological stations, so he considered becoming a meteorologist-come-artist. But what he knew for sure was he didn’t want to be an engineer.

It was Melbourne’s Block Arcade that gave him the courage to confront his parents and quit engineering. He had been to the arcade numerous times, but had never taken any notice of the building — with the notable exception of the Hopetoun tea rooms with its famous cakes and desserts.

One Thursday, late in the first year of his engineering course, he was whiling away an hour in the city, wandering through the arcades and bluestone lanes. It was after six when he found himself in the Block Arcade. The shops were closed, human traffic was light, and for the first time he saw the domed ceiling, he saw the glossy wood-and-brass shop fronts, and, most particularly, he saw the floor.

It was covered in mosaic.