Jonathan had noticed none. “Which is that, sir?”

“The comedians. The young teasers you encountered earlier in the week. The school will have to do without their routines for a while.”

That almost robbed Jonathan of the breath it took to demand “Why?”

“They appear to have taken up slapstick.” Mr Foster frowned at himself or at Jonathan’s terseness. “They climbed up on a roof they should have known wouldn’t support them, not that they ought to have been anywhere near it.”

What might they have been fleeing? Jonathan’s grandmother would have said they’d brought it on themselves. Having thanked Mr Foster, who seemed to wonder why, he found a gap between two school buildings to hide in. “Please God look after my grandma now. Don’t let her hear anything else bad,” he added, and “I expect those boys have learned their lesson.”

He wouldn’t have minded if they had returned to school in time to see his father collect him in the Land Rover. His father had finished work early, having designed enough houses for one week. He’d once said Jonathan’s grandmother’s house was too big for today and itself, which she’d taken as an insult. “We’ll have a lively weekend, shall we?” he said, shaking Jonathan’s hand.

Jonathan tried as hard as he could tell his father’s lady did. She was called but not spelled Zoh, and kept attempting to make her face even smaller and prettier while she acted girlish with his father or motherly with Jonathan. She and his father took him to restaurants and films and a museum and a game where they had to dodge through a maze and shoot one another with lasers, Zoh emitting a coy reproachful squeal whenever she was hit. Between some of these events he spent time in their apartment, where the rooms were uncluttered and elegantly plain and unobtrusively warm. He was sure they were just the right size, not least his bedroom, but he felt as if the place wasn’t quite reaching him. Perhaps it was the other way round, since he couldn’t stop wondering what was happening at his grandmother’s house.