Not long after he’d arrived and taken up his rented room in Dulwich, reality had shouldered him into submission. Working at Stack Furnish was sobering and monotonous. He’d found that being an architect in practice required little vision or imagination; if he took the partners as his standard-bearers, architecture seemed to be about the mindless service of rich clients who couldn’t tell the difference between lateral and perpendicular, but who could still be invoiced for a spate of meetings to discuss the smallest of adjustments to designs – nothing ever got completed, just continued. The longer he was at Stack Furnish, the more he felt he was releasing the balloon strings of his principles, forgoing every instinct and good habit he’d acquired since his first draughtsman’s class at borstal. Now the world was definitely braced for something, but it wasn’t him and Florence or their big ideas.

‘I get the feeling you approve of Mr Wright and what he preaches,’ Cort went on. ‘Please tell me that you do, because I can’t keep up the act. I’m not at all conflicted. Not one bit. I think the man’s a visionary – and now it looks as though I’m only saying it because you are, but ever since those first few articles of his in Wendingen, I –’

‘Stop, Fred. I believe you. And you’re right, I think the same.’ For the first time, he could look at Cort and see through the veneer of him: those three-piece suits he wore on a rotation, the rule-straight parting in his hair, the news broadcaster’s accent. It was just another way of blending into the drab scenery at Stack Furnish, giving the partners what they wanted. ‘Let me get us the next round, eh? Unless you’d rather go back to the office.’

Two more halves of mild apiece and then they switched to brandy. After this, the wall lights started shimmering like campfires far away. The pub got so loud he was shouting things to Cort across the table that ought to have been whispered. ‘I’ve not given any thought to what I’ll do when it kicks off, have you? I’m sure we’ll get dragged into it before too long. Perhaps I’ll just present myself wherever I’m supposed to go and they can put me where I’ll be most useful.’

‘Sounds all right to me. I have an uncle who was in the Sappers, so I might as well look into that. As long as they don’t put me in a tank, I’ll do just fine.’

‘I wouldn’t mind. It’s ships that bother me – the water, anyway. Every time I go to Birkenhead, I chuck up on the ferry.’

‘Skip the navy, then.’

‘I don’t trust aeroplanes much neither.’

Cort made wide, reproachful eyes at him. ‘Sounds like something I heard Ibbot say once.’

‘Oh, God. Sorry. Change the subject.’

‘Fine by me.’ Cort snapped his fingers twice. ‘Let’s have another of those gaspers.’

‘We finished them already.’

‘Then let’s find a cigarette machine.’