‘Think you’ll find, Stanley, that slavery and the colonies were a pipeline of liquid fertilizer pumping away into the British soil for four hundred years so that the money trees on this fair isle could grow big and strong. Think that gives us land rights, don’t you? Look, the point is to be always on the move. How exciting is that?’

‘A bit too exciting for me,’ I replied. ‘I like going home to the same bed, I think. Everyone does, don’t they?’

‘If you haven’t tried it, how do you know? Tell me, when did you last take a risk?’

The only risks I’d ever taken had been calculated and financial. I said nothing.

‘How are you going to grow if you never take risks? Look, you could wait a year or you could do it now and really test your mettle. Life’s far too extraordinary ever to offer guarantees because if you can predict what’s around the corner, then you’re merely surviving, not truly living.’

‘I’ve always known what’s around the corner.’ I tried to take back my words but they went on regardless. ‘Then my father died and now it seems – my dreams were his.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. When did he die?’

Jessie sounded like a counsellor, infused with professional concern. No, it was genuine. Well, if she could say ‘I don’t need any pity, love’, then so could I.

‘A year ago.’

‘Tell me about him.’

‘I’d rather not, at least not yet.’

Full stop. End of errand.

She stroked my cheek with the back of her hand. I wanted to cry. ‘When you’re ready.’

She was right. I’d shut out all possibilities so that nothing had surprised me until my father’s death, which I couldn’t avoid. I could hand in my notice, rent out my flat to a friend. What was keeping me here? School report, 1988: STANLEY IS FREE. Gold Medal of Exceptional Bravery.

‘Yes, it was all to please my father.’

Now he’s gone. It’s scary.

‘What have you got to lose?’

‘My career?’

Even as I spoke, I knew the argument against it.

‘What have you got to gain?’

‘Living in the world instead of watching it spin by.’

‘That’s right and you go, come back, pick up where you left off, wiser, more fulfilled, more worldly. I mean, what do you want on your gravestone? STANLEY PAID HIS MORTGAGE ON TIME AND WAS NEVER LATE FOR WORK. THE BANKING INDUSTRY WILL SORELY MISS HIM.’

‘What if we don’t get on?’ I ventured, watching her.

‘I’ll make sure we get on.’ She said it with such a lack of hesitation that I guessed she’d have enough determination to make things work for both us.

It was tempting. It was crazy. Yesterday I was trapped. Today I felt reckless.

‘I don’t know!’

‘Stop thinking so much and act.’