I know about fear – all my life it has been a silent companion, always suppressed and always hidden but lurking in the shadows, glimpsed over the shoulder like a secret follower. Was it the curse of the firstborn? It feels sometimes like the greatest failure of my life and one that I would have given anything to discard. And as Melissa stands with her hand on Donovan’s shoulder I remember the tightness of the embrace in which my mother and father held us as we hid in the basement, an embrace that was unable to stop what passed over and through me. But I think too of the night I stood with Julia amongst a people and shared their belief that they were at the door of a future determined by hope. And it was hope I wanted, believed it was hope that would save us.

I go to speak but Melissa’s voice rings out, telling me again to leave it, and I wonder how much she knows about what happened in his past. But there is no way to sidestep her protection and it feels as if Donovan has once more evaded the things for which he was responsible. So as my resentment bridles I tell them I am leaving and start to make my way to my room to collect my stuff.

‘We need you, Mikey,’ Donovan says, and his voice is stronger.

‘Need me?’

‘Yes, Mikey, we need you. There isn’t anyone else. No one else we trust.’

I am confused. He invites me to sit and reluctantly on my part we resume the seats we occupied the night before. There is something uncharacteristically nervous in his manner and, although we are inside, the sweat spots on his shirt have increased in number and size. He asks me if I want a drink but I say no, keen that nothing should delay my departure longer than is necessary.

‘What is it you need?’

‘I know I’ve asked you to do things in the past that troubled you. And you were right to be troubled. So asking now again after all these years doesn’t come easy. If there was any other way, I wouldn’t ask.’

‘What is it you want, Iggy?’

‘I want you to leave here, leave very soon. But with a passenger.’

‘A passenger?’

‘Yes, someone who needs to go north,’ he says, hesitating. ‘You’re the only person who can take him.’

‘And who is this passenger?’

He stands up and pulls the front of his shirt free from his skin then stares at the blackened remnants of the fire before turning to me again.

‘You remember Corley Rodgers – Corley, Corley, Tell a Story Rodgers? We used to laugh at him. Well no one’s laughing now because Corley finally found himself a story. He turned up here making a film about the border and, for better or worse, our paths crossed. He made his film and I thought that was that. But he came back, Mikey, and he brought someone with him. Someone who’s been hiding out here ever since.’