It was mid-morning. A crowd had gathered around two young men who were eating fire outside the cathedral to the accompaniment of a CD player, while an old man dressed in a blanket rooted through a bin. The flame-eaters wore dark, oily clothes and had tied their hair in ponytails; there was something shambolic about their act, as if it might go wrong at any time. They asked people to stand back, and then they started juggling flaming batons, while the crowd gave a nervous clap. The old man seemed to notice them for the first time. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and stood between the two men, like a piggy in the middle. He was laughing. The two young men yelled at him to move away, but he began to dance to their music. His movements were jerky and unrefined; suddenly the flame-eaters seemed both slick and professional. They switched off their CD player and packed away their things, and the crowd diluted to a few passers-by, but the old man danced alone outside the cathedral, his arms outspread and his eyes closed, as if both the music and the people were still present.

Harold wanted to get on with his journey, but equally he felt that the old man was performing for the benefit of strangers and that, as the only one remaining, it would be discourteous to abandon him.

He remembered David jiving at the holiday camp in Eastbourne, the night he won the Twist prize. Embarrassed, the other contestants had peeled away, leaving only this eight-year-old child with his body jiggering so fast, it was impossible to tell whether he was happy or in pain. The compère began a slow clap, and made a joke that rang through the dance hall, so that everyone roared. Bewildered, Harold had smiled too; not knowing in that moment how to be anything so complicated as his son’s father. He glanced at Maureen and found she was watching, her hands to her mouth. The smile dropped from his face and he felt nothing but a traitor.

There was more. There were David’s school years. The hours in his bedroom, the top marks, the refusal to allow his parents’ help. “It doesn’t matter he keeps to himself,” Maureen would say. “He has other interests.” After all, they were loners themselves. One week David wanted a microscope. Another it was the collected works of Dostoyevsky. Then it was German for Beginners. A bonsai tree. In awe of the greed with which he learned new things, they bought them all. He was blessed with an intelligence and opportunities they had never had; whatever they did, they mustn’t let him down.

“Father,” he would say, “have you read William Blake?” Or, “Do you know anything about drift velocity?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I thought as much.”