‘Spare me your self-pity, and let us not compete on the tragedy of childhood because I suspect I will come out as victor. One shoulders it.’ He directed his attention to Stanley and said in a matter-of-fact manner, ‘I was abducted by a French adventurer who was acquiring a host of unusual objects to put in the ageing Louis XIV’s palace of Versailles. Fortunately, fate intervened. I was confiscated by officials in Cairo and sent on to the auction block here, eventually being brought to Tsar Peter by the Russian ambassador.’

‘I spent my childhood in total despair!’ Pushkin shouted out. ‘Total despair! Stanley, do you understand?’

In that moment Stanley saw that the journey from England, with all its characters and happenings, had not only freed him from the bondage of his early years but also opened up the history of his country and continent to him. He rested against the pillar. After skanking so energetically, he was feeling heady. This was the first time he had danced since the Under Sixteens Disco in Tower Hamlets nearly twenty years earlier. It was exhilarating. Why had it taken him so long to get here?

The other two stood watching him, waiting for him to speak.

‘I do understand because I too spent my childhood in total despair.’ He began quietly, expecting what he’d grown used to with Jessie: for such extrovert personalities to butt in and shift the conversation back to themselves. But he felt such total acceptance emanating from his newfound friends that he became more confident, more animated. ‘I was never allowed to play with other children because my father didn’t want me running round the streets and ending up in trouble. He never liked my schoolfriends, so I was never allowed into their houses. I was always alone. I longed for adulthood, but when adulthood came, I didn’t have a clue about what I wanted out of life. The muscle for making my own decisions hadn’t been used, you see. I was just a product of my father’s instruction, an automaton. Now I’m not. Now I’m becoming a … someone.’

‘At least I was lucky to be sent away to the imperial Lyceum, where I could be my own adorable self. I have always been a someone.’

‘A little suffering helped to make you a good writer, Alexander,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Fool not thyself. How many artistes grew up without trouble in their hearts? You should be grateful that it was a tough ride and not an easy one.’

Pushkin put an arm around Stanley’s shoulders. ‘What did I tell you? He’s a hard man, with such backhanded compliments. I was merely good, not great.’