He couldn’t see how it made any difference to Tesco’s grand plans if he gave his presentation on Friday instead of tomorrow. But his manager insisted. It was irritating to be subject to someone else’s arbitrariness. It was just a culture of performative zeal. McKinseyites were supposed to be the shock troops of capitalism, sacrificing themselves to smash through problems. James was supposed to be eagerly hurling himself into the fray. But he couldn’t quite get himself geed up.

his pride had suffered. His weariness was still outmatched by fury. He did not pause to consider whether the HR people were right, or whether McKinsey was still the right path upwards. He refused to lose.

Out of sudden fear, he spoke. “What I would say about him, though, is that he’s totally… like, on his gravestone it would say ‘He actually did it.’ As in, loads of people say, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be cool to start an energy company?’ But his thing is that he really does it.

It was not the time for Roland to start playing up. But James was realising that this was the nature of adult life. There were no breakthroughs into clear open space. Every time you were just getting into your stride, something tripped you. It was like trying to construct a functioning car out of pasta shapes: every time you, with supreme care and delicacy, got this improbable object moving forward, something snapped again.

Javier might make a better head of engineering than Alan. Maybe. It was premature. James needed to watch him for a while. Javier was not a follower; he would try to impose himself on the company. That would cost stress and effort to restrain. But better a strong beast you had to fight to keep in harness than an obstinate little mule with no imagination who only ever said that it couldn’t be done.