They reached the Blackwall Tunnel, beyond which lay the suburbs of south-east London, and beyond that the open fields of Kent. They picked up the motorway at Dartford and drove into the countryside. Stanley sat upright, staring ahead, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was doing this; but, as he was, he didn’t quite know what to say or do next.

Jessie exhaled long and loud.

‘A sky. A road. Going somewhere. Me, I’m a gadabout at heart. Going to drive across Europe to Australia, Stanley. The old Magic Bus route via Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India, then a hop, skip, land, ferries and God knows what all the way down under. Matilda will take me. Stop off in Spain first. There’s money to be made on that coast. You coming with me?’

Turning towards her, Stanley spluttered, ‘Australia? Are you serious?’

‘Or are you going to become one of the world’s if onlys?’

Adopting a gently mocking tone, she added, ‘If only I’d gone with that daredevil Jessie when I was younger instead of building papier mâché castles in the air. Look at me, the stock market crashed and all I’ve got is a caravan in Margate to retire to and double bypass heart surgery on the National Health Service waiting list.’

Slipping down into his seat, he drew his legs towards him, upturned his coat collar and disappeared beneath it.

She slid a cassette into the tape deck. Ella Fitzgerald poured out of the two crackling speakers at the back. I’ve got you under my skin …

‘You don’t have to make up your mind just yet,’ she said, petting him on the knee. ‘Monday morning will do. First thing, on my desk, second-in-command.’

… Within a few hours

my tender secret found. The boy who is shadow

to the shadow-less man.

Standing on summer’s far-off sloping verge,

my sensible, black plimsoles desperate to leap

on to that last wagon of speeding, rolling stock.

Slavery, penitentiary, poverty

Hollywood’s desperadoes with no choice

but to flee, or be captured, convicted,

even die, inside

childhood was a bleak litany of what-not-to-dos,

roam the streets, no

cowboys and Indians, no

scarred knees as evidence of childish adventures. I turn

my collar up, so-called chin tilted down,

and blink at this country’s distant, foreign land

as we disappear

into its ancient, green appetite.

Hedges? Haystacks? Farmhouses?

Cows? Horses? Tractors?

Dark lumps become violent, predatory beasts.

How am I, city-slicker-banker-boy

supposed to know

anything

other than this weird domestic wildness,

this tame and tugging danger,

this trip into morning …

Broadstairs-sur-la-Mer