There waS a perfectly rational explanation for how the blood got on to the orchid. It began with my decision to go to Berwick-upon-Tweed for the first time.

This led to a chain of incidents in which I did not know what to do. It was not a moral crisis on the level of taking life or sparing it. I was not in charge of artillery. No, it was to do with all the little things for which there are no instructions as one moves about the world.

Usually I know how to catch a train. But now, with coronavirus restrictions, if I reserved a seat on one side of a table in the carriage, might I end up with someone opposite sputtering at me like Wally the Walrus, all the way up the East Coast Main Line?