‘Sir.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You and Wright were very good pals, weren’t you.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you heard from him, by any chance?’

I hadn’t, but I’d heard the rumours – that he’d been caught in London by the MPs and ended up – as I’d so often said he would – in the Glasshouse. ‘No, sir.’

‘He’ll be out in six months. Might as well have saved himself the trouble.’

‘Sir.’

‘I suppose you’ll join him, eh?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘You don’t know much, do you, Medway. Hmm?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Dismissed.’

That night I collapsed in the barracks, climbing into bed, and spent another night on the wards.

I was up before the AOC again three days later.

‘Medway, this can not go on.’

‘No, sir.’

‘I’m going to have to sign you off.’

‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘Temperamentally unfit for duty.’

‘I’m fine, sir. I’ll be okay.’

‘You will not.’ He handed me a piece of white paper with a large red seal on it. ‘I’m sending you for assessment.’

‘Where, sir?’

‘To RAF Halton. That will be all, Medway.’

I walked slowly back to the empty billet. Kelsey saw me, but ignored me, as if I had left already. I packed my few belongings, parcelled up my diary and my magazines with the prints and the negatives and went to the post office. That night I slept better than I had slept for weeks, untroubled by thoughts or dreams. It had happened, at last – happened, but not happened. I had said nothing, confessed nothing, but I was out, following in Stephen’s footsteps, following the trail to London. To life. To Wright.

Nobody mentions the word ‘homosexuality’ at Halton, but they watch me like a hawk for any signs of it. We sit in the dayroom doing art: one day we have to paint a picture, then we make a sculpture out of plasticine, then we make a basket out of raffia. The doctors in their white coats pace up and down the rows of tables, making notes on clipboards, occasionally asking questions.

‘What is that, Medway?’

‘It’s a tree, sir.’

‘It has a very thick, straight trunk, Medway.’

‘Yes, sir. It’s an oak. It’s at the bottom of my parents’ garden.’

‘And these things at the bottom … these two round things …’

‘Toadstools, sir. Fly agarics, to be precise.’

‘They’re rather large.’ He licks his lips.

‘They do grow rather large, sir.’

‘And what’s this, coming out of the top of the tree? Shooting out, you might say?’

‘A flock of starlings.’

‘They’re white.’

‘I haven’t got around to colouring them in yet, sir.’

‘I see.’ Scribble scribble. As far as the doctor is concerned, my little painting of the garden at home is a spurting cock with big red balls. The same thing happened with the plasticine (‘you say it’s a jug, Medway, but would you not also say it’s a shaft?’), and God only knows what they read into the basket. Perhaps raffia work is, in itself, suspicious enough.