He’d say this stuff like it was not only irrefutable fact but blindingly obvious as well. As each autumn rolled around, Alfie needed slightly less of a leg up to the lowest branch. His dad would follow right behind, steadying him whenever he stumbled, until they’d reach the highest solid branch. They’d sit awhile in the golden air, salty and crisp and always with a hint of bonfire. A bag of good-sized conkers, still in their husks, would be picked, ready for multiple cycles of oven-baking and freezing until they were invincible. An annual ritual, it would feel to Alfie like an era ended each time they embarked on the climb, a new one beginning when they dropped to the ground again. The world went on turning beneath them, but at that great height above the town and the sea, the two of them had somehow stepped off it for an afternoon.

It’s no effort for Alfie to climb on to the first bough. No need for those solid hands round his waist now. Was it always this low? he wonders. He reaches that familiar high branch. The fog is thinning up here, faint headlamps visible on the marsh road. Alfie leans against the trunk where once he and his dad carved their names with a Swiss army knife. No trace in the bark now. But still Alfie has a strange sense that this tree, this hunk of living, breathing timber, somehow remembers him. Surely not many people have sat right up here and shared its view?

What have you become? That’s what Alfie imagines the tree asking. When did you turn into this?

Alfie sidesteps his way along the bough. He’s out far enough now, a clear path to the ground below him. The grease-stained tow rope is fixed round the branch in no time. And he ties the other end.

There are no trains now. No cars on the road. Just the thick silence of the fog and soft rattle of his father’s old watch on his wrist. There’s a snap somewhere below. Footfalls. An animal, no doubt.

His legs shake as he half stands, clutching a spindly branch above him. There’s a twinge of panic. Like leaving for a school trip as a tiny kid and suddenly deciding he’d rather not be away from his family. But he knows it’s too late. Far, far too late.

One last look over the curtain of icy mist. A stripe of granite sea is visible at the horizon.

This is the last light to pass my eyes.

I don’t want to go.

The knot is tightened, in readiness.

You have to go. No choice. Not any more.

Please? Please?

The shaking’s bad now. His feet slide on the icy branch. He grasps the twigs about him in his greasy hands.

Time to go now. Time to check out.