There was no more sleeping after that. He felt hot-footed, agitated. The windows in his hotel wouldn’t open wide enough. He’d bought some Camels from a newsstand on his walk to the East Village; he didn’t like the flavour much, but half the packet was gone before he went to bed. He knew he’d have to get more for the voyage home – the crooks from Cunard charged you twice the price for everything on board. His bags were packed already. He was running low on dollars. A pushy kid out on the street had charmed him into paying for a shoe shine and he’d done such a terrific job he’d given him a few cents extra; the kid had looked at him – ‘You sure?’ – as though he’d offered the last sandwich in his lunchbox. After that, he’d been through all the drawings in his portfolio several times, preparing justifications for their failings. The best work of his life was right there at the front, as Mr Mayhood had advised – his parti sketches for the halls of residence, a copy of the brief adjacent, giving context. He could talk about those drawings all day long. But if he didn’t have an answer for the great man’s question, Tell me, Charlie, why d’you want to be an architect?, then none of it would matter.

He lit a Camel, stood before the mirror to revise what he would say until it was convincing. He could speak about belonging – that would do it. How alive he’d felt at Leventree. How sure of his direction. How inspiring it had been to watch the Mayhoods go about their work. These things were genuine and he would mean them. Even if they weren’t the truth.

He’d come to understand that it was better to pretend he didn’t have a sister any longer – better to believe it. There were side-eyed looks he couldn’t bear to witness any more when he was asked for information. Whatever made him leave a good apprenticeship like that? Why had those policemen visited today? What did they want to talk to him about? What landed him in borstal in the first place? He’d grown tired of the excuses, tired of having to extemporize with lies, and he was sick of having to account for where he went and what he did. He hated the suspiciousness and scrutiny. The sudden cooling off in people’s interest when he told them. It was easier to act as though she wasn’t in his past, because she wasn’t in his present. But he couldn’t just extract her from his mind the way he’d cut her from the film.

He’d borrowed Mr Ponsonby’s equipment – a splicer and a viewer – and followed the instructions carefully. Frame by frame, he’d snipped her out. A wretched job. The worst. His hands had glossed with so much sweat the cellulose had slipped about and nearly spoiled. He’d gone down to the shop below for cotton painting gloves. When it was done, he’d gathered up the pieces he’d removed and put them in a jar. Eventually, he’d made another reel out of them. All Joyce. Not much footage and a scrappy edit, but it wasn’t meant for anyone else to see. He must’ve watched it back a thousand times. In a rush, he’d put a label on the tin, Joyce Cuts, and now the accidental pun had stuck. She would’ve laughed at that. It suited her.