‘Always look the part’ was another piece of advice my father had given me. Thinking about this guidance, I realised it had kinship with what he had said about deterring muggings by looking threatening. The world didn’t check ID too closely – wear the right clothes and you’d get given the according role. Therefore we had a surprising amount of latitude to define ourselves; to say ‘this is me’ and be accepted.

This advice was deeply rooted in background, of course: white, male, middle-class, educated. Change any one of those characteristics and Dad’s look-the-part ideology might not have carried him so far. And he had a further advantage in that he only aspired to a kind of provincial, professional stoutness, and nature had happily shaped him to that purpose. The suits he wore were not fancy or flashy or even tailored, but they looked like extensions of his very essence, so they fitted, in all ways they fitted. One time, in the buccaneering early days of home internet, he had found a site that would send you a hand-made suit from Hong Kong if you entered an extremely detailed set of measurements. Dad was extremely excited about this service, and its astoundingly low price tag, and after he and Mum had spent an hour with the tape measure, the suit was ordered. Seven weeks later it arrived, and my father tried it on. The cut was flawless, the material exquisite. But it was all wrong. It was too obsequious to the form beneath. It was too personal. What suited my father about suits was their anonymising, smoothing effect: wool blankness.

Both my parents saw the problem with the work of art that came back from the Far East. ‘It’s very smart,’ said my mother, with a tilt to the words that made them utterly damning. He never wore it again.

By the time I arrived at Zebedee, I did not like to imagine the impression I made. The icy rain had given me a headache and my hands looked shockingly pale, like creatures dredged up from an ocean trench. The receptionist’s smile was a technicality, and he directed me to the function room with a blend of relief and scorn: I was not a guest, but also not his problem, and I would linger only a while. He would not have to eject me, I was not one of the invisible people made shockingly visible.

The clipboard-wielding women in tight red skirts at the double door of the function room were more difficult to pass. They viewed my approach with open disbelief and dismay, and they checked their lists with obvious doubt. Order was restored to their universe when my name could not be found. No Jack Bick.