Jonathan shook the outstretched hand and searched the large head and ruddy face for some familiar trait but saw none – no dimples, no elfish smile – only a waddle on splay-feet and a meshwork of tiny veins that made the nose purple.

‘Welcome, welcome, welcome. Detta, set a place for Johnny. You move along, Peewee,’ he said to a lanky figure folded into the chair beside his own. ‘Go. Away. Johnny’s going to sit here today. Detta, knives and forks. A plate.’ He turned to Jonathan. ‘Sit. Sit. Sit,’ he said. ‘A glass of wine? Meat? Potatoes? Helen, why haven’t you eaten anything?’ One of the aproned women put a plate in front of Jonathan, piled with food, and a tulip-shaped glass of red wine. Sebastian righted his chair and sat, too. ‘Now, Johnny,’ he said in the elegant English accent College had imitated so often, ‘how long can you stay? Let me introduce you to everybody.’ He smiled benignly around the table. ‘This is Peewee—’ He stopped, cast an eye over Helen’s plate and speared a piece of potato with his fork. ‘Why do I have to eat your food, Helen?’ he said, chewing the potato and reaching over again. ‘You really ought to eat it yourself.’

Peewee wore an old army jacket with a sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve. There were two old men, twins, who spoke in unison: a remarkable, disconcerting feat that made Jonathan edgier than he felt already. There was a middle-aged lady in a severe shirt with stripes and a cravat, a heavily freckled young woman with red hair, and a black-haired boy with angry eyes and the skin and cheekbones of an Indian.

‘This is Josh,’ Sebastian said, gesturing at the boy. ‘He’s my star pupil, ready for university. Wonderful mind, haven’t you, Josh? Wonderful. But they won’t let Indians in American universities, did you know that? I can’t imagine why.’ Josh stopped chewing and looked Jonathan up and down. There’d been a dog on one of Jonathan’s runs, a tiny, fierce-eyed poodle, white and fluffy. Baggagemen hated dogs. Dogs fought and bit, and a baggageman got no more for carrying one than for carrying a saddle. Jonathan had tied the poodle not far from a bucket of lubricating oil; the train hit a sag; the dog fell in the bucket. For fifty miles Jonathan had scrubbed with a gunny sack while the dog got blacker and shinier and its eyes glittered more and more fiercely. The resemblance to Josh was startling.

‘Josh is just going on fifteen,’ Seb said indulgently. ‘A difficult age. Now, Johnny, tell us about yourself.’

‘I’m a railroadman,’ Jonathan said.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Sebastian laughed. ‘Everybody here knows that. Everybody knows Ray’s Johnny and the railroads. Everybody.’

‘Seb,’ said Helen, her fingers fluttering over the tines of her fork, ‘he doesn’t – he couldn’t know that we – Don’t you see?’

‘Oh,’ Sebastian said. ‘Yes. There were many letters, Johnny. Ray wrote often, you know. Often. He wrote us about railroads and mountains and oceans and – about you.’