He remembered Elizabeth again, the first woman he’d so nearly married and then not. Not Amy: he’d nearly married her, too, but Elizabeth had been so different and sometimes he still tried to blame her for leaving him, even though he knew she was to be congratulated. Nothing had been her fault: she’d just seen too clearly, and it wasn’t the fault of Polish Pete, the man she was probably being held by now, tenderly, he hoped – though why would lovers be holding one another at this time of the morning, when they had busy jobs? It wasn’t Polish Pete’s fault, that was the main thing: and for a moment he wondered how people always became trapped in the endless apportioning of blame, and how that disciplinary procedure had been all about narrowing it right down until he was caught in the net, or skewered on that point – that javelin – of indisputable, shameful incompetence. There he was, running as fast as he could as they came after him with the great big skewer. And he tripped. He fell, and rolled onto his back and wham! In it went, just below the ribcage, and he was pinned to the paperwork, blamed for ever as the crowds trundled by on buses and trains. It must come from childhood, he thought, when blame is apportioned extra rigorously, and you have no right of appeal.

‘Twelve per cent in your Latin test.’

Whose fault was that? His form tutor apportioned blame, as had his parents.

‘It was my fault. I didn’t understand it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know what the teacher’s talking about, sir.’

‘Who teaches you Latin?’

‘Mr Trace. He says words I don’t understand – I don’t know what a “declension” is. I don’t know what “passive voice” means, so I have to pay. That’s why I have no defence, sir, when he calls me back at lunchtime, sir. Ignorance is no plea, so he helps me, but… do I really need help?’

Every boy knows: Mr Trace loves nothing more than to help boys pay, and he does so until his glittering eyes get the special glitter. Why tell the story, when everyone knows? What surprise can there be, when we’re all abused every day in some way or another? We abuse, because it’s what we are: I abuse, you abuse and he was abused. The man reflected in this window, there he is again – and he will be abused, pluperfect passive had been abused. ‘When Caesar came to the water. The water? No, the river – sorry, sir. When Caesar came to the river, he called his legions together and said, “Is there a man amongst you who has not been abused? Let him stand forth.”’

Michael wasn’t smiling.