One night in October 2002, I went for my usual walk. I loved walking at night, even though it meant I had to stick to the well-lit streets. There was something about stepping out the front door into the dark, pulling it closed behind you, setting off down the street. I had some handweights that were supposed to be good for your arm muscles. I didn’t know if they were, but they made you walk in a certain way—striding out. I had a good pair of walking shoes, plenty of bounce in the soles. I had a routine: swing out of the front door at eight-thirty, walk up to the pub at the roundabout and back, a good forty-minute workout.

It had been raining on and off all day, but now the rain had become hardly more than a mist. The drizzle made a radiant halo around every streetlight. Their reflections were bright blurs along the black road. I could feel the moisture settling in my hair, weighing it down, a drip starting down the side of my face. I could have brought an umbrella, but what did it matter, it was only water. As that Irishman in Tim Winton’s book says, ‘Afraid of a bit of soft weather then?’

After a few minutes I was warmed up and striding out. At the crossroads there was an ugly cairn, a bit too squat to be glorious, erected in honour of some past local worthy. His name was there in big carved letters: THOMAS STEPHENSON ROWNTREE 1902. I imagined them all standing around at the unveiling. Speeches. Women in big silly hats. Men in waistcoats and watch-chains. The friends and family of Thomas Rowntree, admiring his name carved in stone. For ever, they’d have thought. They’ll always remember him.

Drops of water pattered in the fig trees around the cairn and I could hear fruit bats up in the branches. A spray of water came down as they made a bunch of leaves twitch. Poor old Thomas Rowntree, long forgotten. Only the fruit bats and the summer rain and this sweet cool air were still there.

I walked fast, feeling my feet springing along against the soles of my shoes. Past the video shop, where I waved hello to Amanda behind the counter. Past the hardware shop that always had a joke in its window. ‘My wife uses the fire alarm as a timer.’ Ha ha. Along the spooky bit where the streetlights were too far apart and the houses were always in darkness. Up to the pub at the roundabout, all those people laughing and shouting at each other and a cosy fug of beer smells leaking out the door, then turn back towards home.