‘Did you ever read the whole story?’ ‘Yes. In French. And you?’ It was my turn to laugh. ‘I’m from Jericho, Bastiaan, not Oxford. I left school at twelve, and Homer was not on the curriculum at St Barnabas – not in English and certainly not in Ancient Greek.’ ‘But why not in English?’ ‘There was no point. Our destinies were too ordinary to bother the gods, and our journeys would take us no further than the Press.’
