This area, once so rundown with abandoned factories and the remnants of the boat-building industry, is going through a resurgence. Though I guess not for the boat yards. There’s a new tapas bar on the opposite side of the Avon that looks like it should be in San Francisco; blocks of flats have sprung up: with their white walls and jaunty-coloured window ledges, they’re reminiscent of cruise liners; the old gasworks has been converted into luxury penthouses, all steel and sepia-tinted glass. The flat my father used to live in during the week, when he was working at Bristol University, is perched up on the hill behind – he’s letting me stay there for now. Bethany, after she left home, had a better offer and went to stay with one of Dad’s friends – some prof with a posh house in Clifton – instead. Now she’s renting one of those apartments nearby that were swanky about a decade ago. It’s off Caledonian Road and is so close to the studio, we could hang out, if she liked me more than she does.

When I call my sister, she answers on the first ring, with a ‘Haaaaay’, like I’m her favourite person. ‘It’s Mr Nick Flowers.’ She sounds far too chipper for this hour in the morning – and for a conversation with her brother, when we haven’t actually spoken much for months.

‘Do you want a coffee? I’m passing – on my way to work.’

Only a small lie, as I’m walking in the opposite direction, but I don’t expect Bethany will stop long enough to figure it out.

‘I’m with Joe,’ she says, like I should know who that is.

Her boyfriend? That was fast; she hasn’t been in Bristol long. I can hear a man’s voice in the background.

She laughs. ‘Chill. It’s my brother.’

A jealous boyfriend?

‘We’re about to do HIITs on the towpath. Joe thinks you’ll distract me. So yeah, get us an espresso from that caff past Wapping Wharf. Make that two – Joe wants one. Apparently caffeine blitzes fat.’