He winced, for in the letter she had told him he was a worm. She said that she regretted the day she’d spoken to him, which she had only done because she felt so sorry for him. She hoped he ended up lonely, in a hospice. He had hurt her so badly – a hurt he still couldn’t grasp. It wasn’t surprising she wanted to hurt him now. It was just like school, when he’d tripped a boy down the stairs for saying something cruel: he had wanted to break bones. Hurting, being hurt: Chinese burns, punches. The needling torment as someone was excluded from whatever group you’d managed to join – that was a particularly vile way of hurting. He remembered the boy Sandham, and how they’d all ganged up on him for absolutely no reason – James as well. They had flung textbooks at his head! The heavy ones they used for O-level physics, and nobody spoke up to stop them. Poor old Sandham had ignored the first, even though it had slammed into the back of his neck. The second had hit his shoulder, and whoever had thrown it had shouted, ‘One hundred and eighty!’ as if he’d scored a bull’s-eye. The third was a direct strike on the poor boy’s skull, and the fourth had been skimmed so viciously it had hit him in the jaw. ‘One hundred and eighty!’ they’d cried, and Sandham had run out of the room, holding his face just like Michael was holding his, pressed against the carriage door. They could have killed the boy, or knocked his teeth out. And afterwards – the most amazing thing – Sandham had simply forgotten all about it.

They hadn’t got into trouble, he and his friends.

Psychotic violence had not landed them in trouble, for poor Sandham must have been a good sport, and he hadn’t told the teacher – he’d moved on. Perhaps he had bottled up the hurt for ever, and was now a tormented wreck, howling in the night. Perhaps he was unable to be near heavy textbooks? Perhaps not, too – perhaps he’d simply laughed at himself, and put it all behind him?

‘I suppose I had it coming, eh!’ chortled Sandham. ‘Cor, it didn’t half hurt – but boys will be boys, won’t they, Michael? You take it on the chin, don’t you? – you take it in your mouth, sometimes. Let it go!’

The train was pulling into a station, and Michael decided to get off.