During the pregnancy—which had come late (they had been trying for twelve years)—she was convinced a daughter was expected. This was in part because Mrs Askew at number eighty-four who read the cards (and doubled as the back-street abortionist) told her so, and because of her own longing for the daughter/friend that would keep her company during the lonely hours of the days and nights that her husband had to work.

She had knitted masses of pink four-ply baby clothes, and chosen a name—Zena. Dumbfounded at giving birth to a boy—an eight-pounder, to boot—she found herself at a loss for words and a name for her newborn son. She wouldn’t even listen to her husband’s choices: Alfred, like his father, Ron, like him. Her best friend on the block was Mrs Bianchi, who owned the corner ice-cream shop. During rationing, this ingenious Italian had sold ice-cubes on sticks, flavoured with sarsaparilla, and slices of turnips soaked in tinned pineapple juice. It was to her that Enid went for advice.

“Zis is nothing. You like ‘Zena’. So it’s a boy—it’s a Zeno. It’s a beautiful, like your son,” who at that moment was beaming happily from behind a flush of pink in his pram.

Mrs Askew, the card reader, was shocked by the decision, and may have exaggerated the long-term effects of such a name for the boy (this in an attempt to win acceptance for her choice—Gideon—before the christening). Mrs Bianchi prevailed, and Zena became Zeno without even a second name to fall back upon.

Eighteen years later, the shock effect on Zeno was equally profound—even with a record, accompanied by a bullet, in the US charts. The bullet may just as well have been shot into his stomach. Dismay quietly consumed the rest of his day, and a lengthy melancholia may have set in, had not fate—in the shape of a Yale graduate doing a thesis on the English pop scene—found its way onto the grey-green charabanc; destination: Bournemouth, the very next day. His neat haircut and Jack Kennedy suit with softly moulded shoulders set him so apart from the muster of peacocks and shaven-headed roadies that Zeno was struck by him immediately. He had no sooner sat alongside the young man than his eye was caught by the title of the book resting on his lap: The Confessions of Zeno, by Italo Svevo.

When Rick—for that was the scholar’s name— and Zeno traded introductions, he appeared as delighted by the coincidence (synchronicity, he termed it) as Zeno. A discussion followed that took them through the night, and both were surprised to find the coach pulling to a halt, the sun highlighting Bournemouth’s manicured lawns.

By the time the tour finished, Rick had begun his career in rock and roll, and he went on to promote some of the most memorable Sixties happenings in the US. Meanwhile, Master Studd was off searching in an altogether different direction.

Zeno passed the ornamental lake and was heading into the shadowy section of the park, which was generally deserted, when he saw three figures: a middle-aged-spread jogger with jaws clamped on a glowing Churchillian cigar, the earphones of his antennaed Walkman giving him the appearance of a mutated insect; and a man teaching a boy to shoot a bow and arrow.