Again, Will nods. And again, the chair is off. Her perfume is familiar and it amazes Will that he can experience such a feel-good nostalgia from so recent and inconsequential a memory. He thinks about the closed bedroom door that night, and the noises beyond it, and the things he could hear Danny saying, and how he felt grubby and disgusted with himself for listening. And he thinks of Danny’s brags on Saturday morning, and how they made him nauseous, and now he’s glowing red and has an aching in his guts and he’s glad of any distraction.

Alfie Lim, last to arrive, surveys the ring of chairs. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asks. ‘Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous?’

‘I like to think of it more as the United Nations,’ Ms Calloway replies.

He pretends to sob. ‘It all began when I had eight JD and Cokes on my first birthday …’

‘Thank you for sharing,’ she says. ‘Now if you wouldn’t mind.’

He drops into his seat and stretches his arms and legs out, lolling backwards and forwards as if he’s on a bouncy castle. He hoots with laughter so infectious that it soon spreads to Will and April.

‘Can you shut up, please?’ Kris Tring says. ‘Some of us are here to learn.’

‘What is that motherflippin’ bad boy?’ Alfie asks.

‘My camera,’ Kris says matter-of-factly.

‘Did they not have anything bigger?’

‘They did, actually.’

Alfie turns to Ms Calloway. ‘I said no press, Miss. If I’d known there’d be paparazzi …’

A scuffle follows as Alfie pretends to wrestle the camera from Kris, who slaps at his hands each time they venture near the enormous lens. Soon even Ms Calloway’s chair is rocking, her shouts of ‘Stop it now’ delivered with less authority at each repetition.

This isn’t the first time Will and Alfie have been classmates. Will’s GCSE French lessons were regularly interrupted in much the same way as this, and it was Alfie’s dicking about that meant Will left those lessons aching with laughter rather than bored to death as he otherwise would have been. Alfie’s proudly one of the Rough Kids, and he spent his earlier years at ECS earning nicely from selling shoplifted sweets at a generous discount. These days his business is designer trainers and tracksuits, which are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Something he’s a lot quieter about is the fact that – despite never seeming to have paid a minute’s attention in class – he aced his GCSEs.

Alfie tires of provoking Kris and settles back in his own seat, gently bobbing up and down as Ms Calloway welcomes the class and talks them through the course ahead. The room is warm and Ms Calloway’s voice is soft and hypnotic, and Will finds it impossible to be anything other than calm as she talks about focal lengths and exposures and depth of field.