The world was miraculous. Creation was miraculous, but all he could think about was the money he’d committed himself into spending. He didn’t need that intensity of television experience. He didn’t need all those clever people taking cameras to the ocean bed, and swimming with them over fragile reefs – all they did was make him feel sad that he would never dive. They reminded him that he knew nothing about zoology, and was doomed to gaze at turtles and stingrays in wonder, thinking, Aren’t they amazing?

Were turtles amazing? Perhaps they weren’t. If a turtle was amazing, then everything was amazing – and if everything was amazing you had no time to be amazed. You had to guard against being amazed, just to stay sane.

No, he would have preferred a small screen that knew its place and didn’t shout about magical worlds of fish. The TV they actually bought didn’t bring Amy’s daughter down from her room. She – Charlie – preferred to stay in her bedroom when Michael was round. When he wasn’t, she and her mum enjoyed good conversation – or so Amy claimed.

‘She does like you!’ had become a regular reassurance, after she’d blanked him, or stared at him, or said something Michael realised only later was ironic. He seemed to mishear her a lot, because she mumbled.

‘Pardon?’ he would say. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie – say that again.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

She was sixteen, attending the sixth-form college, and as far as Michael could see she hardly noticed him, because he didn’t matter. He was five feet nine inches tall, and he weighed a hundred and forty-two pounds – but Charlie didn’t seem to notice him, and always seemed in a hurry to get past. Was he a threat?

Was he in competition with her father, whom she hardly saw? Or was he despised for being the same gender as her father? Perhaps it was simpler than that: her mother was bringing home a dull, stupid, awkward nothing, so what else could she do but despise him? He despised himself, after all, for being interested in her mother, or feigning interest – or trying to generate interest. He had worked at being interested in the hope that he would start to love her, because Amy was a good soul, and she had a sense of humour. She deserved to be loved. Everyone was a good soul, somewhere – and they had come together like two of those not very special turtles, and found themselves pairing off. How many turtles said, ‘No, thank you – I’m not interested in you. I’m waiting for another turtle, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry, but I want a partner with fewer barnacles’?

He smiled, and sipped his drink.