‘The Sound of Music was set in Austria, not Germany,’ I corrected, seeing my breath cloud in front of me. ‘The whole point was that Austria was under Nazi occupation.’

Facts were facts and fiction was fiction and never the twain should meet. I suspected they were often intertwined for Jessie O’Donnell.

She vigorously wiped the windscreen, which had steamed up with condensation.

‘Don’t be so pedantic, Stanley.’

I arched an eyebrow and gave her my ‘mildly confrontational’ look. She ignored it and revved the engine really loudly again.

‘As I was saying, the recruits would swarm all over me after my act, even though back home I knew that a good few of them were of the kind to go “Paki-bashing”.’

‘That’s just it. It’s dangerous for us driving across Europe.’ I was delighted to present an argument that carried weight. ‘It’s not safe for us out there. You only need to read the papers. Aborigines dying in police custody … Fascist thugs all over Europe … apartheid in South Africa …’

‘Excuses, poor excuses. Stop acting like a resident without a permit.’

We were driving up the high street to pick up the main road out of Broadstairs. Morning was starting to happen: Tesco’s shutters were being pulled up. Schoolgirls and boys were joshing around at a bus stop. A long-haired man was pruning plants that hung from lamp-posts. Workmen were starting to drill in a side road. The school-run was slowing down traffic.

‘My father always said I was a Jamaican first and foremost.’

It had always been a statement, but now I imagined a question mark on the end. What did I, Stanley Orville Cleve Williams, think?

I watched Jessie fire up, assuming the authoritative tone of a statesman about to deliver a sermon to a junior. She reminded me of my father, clearing his throat to remonstrate with the young son who had yet to learn that he could not contradict this elder on any matter.

‘You’re just another Englishman, don’t kid yourself. You think like an Englishman, walk like an Englishman, talk like an Englishman, eat like an Englishman and most likely you dance like an Englishman. You’ve spent all your life in England, Stanley, so what does that make you? Mongolian? Peruvian? Egyptian?’

Did it make sense? Maybe. But I wasn’t going to be crushed like a can of Coke.

‘I don’t have any real roots here. None of us has.’

Was I really just like him, hanging on to a state of statelessness? We don’t belong, Stanley. So why did he never make it back home, where presumably he did belong?