Blank Canvas

“I came expecting a world. What I found was a question—and the dust it waited in.”

We trudged silently behind Glenda, the heat clinging to our backs as if the very air were reluctant to let us pass. Our feet sank into the thick dust that blanketed the rugged terrain of Clivilius, each footstep dislodging a small storm of ochre-hued powder that rose in lazy spirals before settling on our clothes, skin, and hair. It coated everything—like the planet itself was marking us, claiming us.

The path ahead was uneven, shaped by time and weather, not by human hand. Low hills rolled like tired muscles across the land, each incline a fresh demand on our legs already weary from disorientation and disbelief. The silence among us was thick, a shared agreement not to speak until we reached… something. Anything.

The longer we walked, the wider the gap grew between the world I’d imagined and the one now crunching under my boots. Luke’s stories had conjured something luminous—otherworldly in a way that implied advancement or at least awe. But this… this felt like wandering into the past. Like Earth before scaffolding, before maps, before order.

Eventually, as we crested yet another low rise, something stirred in the distance. Shadows shifting against the skyline. Signs of habitation. My chest tightened with premature relief, only for my heart to sink as the sight resolved itself. Not the shining arcologies or glass-spired utopia Luke had once painted in his restless dream-talk—but tents. Several large military-looking ones, flapping gently in the breeze, pegged down with care but no pretence. A smouldering campfire marked the centre of the space, its thin curl of smoke the only movement in an otherwise barren tableau.

"Not much of a settlement, is it,” Chris remarked dryly, his voice carrying the brittle edge of disappointment I didn’t have the strength to voice myself. His words echoed my own thoughts too clearly, each syllable an affirmation of how far we had drifted from expectation.

I stared, trying to reconcile what I was seeing with the imagined world Luke had handed to me on those endless bus rides. “Is this it?” I asked, the dismay bleeding into my voice despite my best efforts. The weight of it sat in my chest like cooling lead.

“This is it,” Glenda confirmed, and there was no shame in her tone. If anything, it was threaded with something approaching pride. “Welcome to Bixbus.”

Her voice rose gently with the name, as if it carried weight—not as a destination, but as a home hard-won. There was something in her gaze that made me pause. This settlement might be rough-hewn and humble, but it wasn’t meaningless.

“Bixbus?” Chris echoed, squinting as if the name itself might explain something. “I thought we were in Clivilius?”

Glenda chuckled, a warm, unguarded sound that felt strangely human amid the strangeness. “Oh, we are in Clivilius, but we've called our own little settlement Bixbus.”

Her answer was simple, but it told me more than I expected. This was a place built not by design, but by necessity. Not a promised land, but a foothold. A place to endure. To begin again.

Chris’s features softened, his earlier cynicism dulled by the hint of something he couldn’t name yet. There was still confusion in his eyes, but it mingled now with a wary flicker of interest, like a man uncertain whether to be disappointed or impressed.

I said nothing. The name Bixbus hovered in my mind like smoke caught in rafters—unfamiliar and yet oddly tender, as if it had been whispered into my bones long before I’d ever heard it aloud. I stared at the place that bore the name, willing it to transform, to reveal some hidden charm, some latent purpose. But it remained what it was: a handful of tents, a ring of scorched earth, a meagre fire sending up faint tendrils of smoke into the dusty air.

My thoughts slipped from the present, tugged backward into softer recollections—the gentle roll of the bus as it pulled away from stops and into quiet stretches of suburbia, the subtle chug of the engine like a slow heartbeat beneath our feet. Jane’s voice had always risen first, giddy with discovery, recounting the day’s triumphs or minor injustices. And Luke—Luke had woven the silences between our words with his strange and compelling visions. He had a way of talking about imaginary things as if he’d visited them himself, eyes alight with secret knowledge.

His worlds back then were only that—worlds. Untethered and ethereal. Woven things. And now… here we were. In the warp and weft of one of them. Threaded into it.

We’d mused so often about a world made new. A place untouched by the cynicism and compromises of the one we’d left behind. A blank canvas, we’d said. Somewhere to begin again. No bureaucracy, no tarmac, no noise pollution humming like a ghost through the trees. Just earth, sky, and intention.

Chris had always been the more earnest of the two of us about those ideals. He’d speak with reverence about self-sufficiency, about living off the land, about reclaiming something elemental in ourselves. He talked about composting toilets and communal grain stores with the same quiet awe most people reserved for holidays or grandparenthood. And I’d listen, amused but quietly moved, because he believed in it. And because it reminded me that we were still capable of dreaming.

But standing here now—in the dry, brittle hush of Bixbus—I felt that dream fray and unravel in my chest. The ground was too still. The sky too vast. The silence no longer peaceful, but stifling. It clung to me, this silence, wrapping around my ribs like a tightening band. There was nothing soft about it. Nothing lush or forgiving. It was as though the world itself had paused and was waiting to see what we’d do with it.

Where are all the people? The trees? The animals? And where is the capital?

The questions knocked like fists against my temples, fast and insistent. We’d envisioned communities thriving in harmony with the land, shaded gardens and rain-harvesting roofs, laughter carried on wind. But here, the horizon stretched out in every direction like a held breath. No buildings, no distant smoke trails, no scent of cooking food or clatter of tools. Just dust. And more dust.

I sucked in a huge breath, willing it to steady me, to anchor me in the present before panic could take root. The air was hot and thin, tasting of sunbaked minerals and something unfamiliar—an undercurrent I couldn’t place.

This is the capital.

The realisation struck with a silent, startling clarity.

Bixbus is the capital.

Not a waypoint. Not a village on the edge of some greater place.

This was it.

A cold tremor coiled up my spine, and for a moment, it felt as though the entire world—the real one, the one we'd come from—slid further from reach.

A young man emerged from one of the tents, blinking against the sunlight as he stepped onto the dry, dusty earth. His arrival shifted something in the air—just slightly—but enough to pull our focus away from the bleak stillness that had gripped us since we’d first laid eyes on Bixbus.

At his heels, trotting with unmistakable purpose, was a small Shih Tzu—tufted ears bouncing with each step, its tongue lolling contentedly from the side of its mouth. My breath caught, a surprised warmth rising through the hollow unease in my chest. Something familiar. Something soft and uncomplicated.

“Duke?” I asked, crouching instinctively, the fine dust puffing around my boots as I lowered myself to the dog’s level. My voice came out gentler than I’d expected, like a small note of hope struck in the quiet.

The little dog’s ears perked, tail swishing in an unbothered arc as he sniffed my hand with the kind of affable indifference only a well-loved pet could manage. His eyes—dark, round, and perfectly oblivious—met mine for a heartbeat, then moved on as if to say, Yes, I’m Duke. And you’re late.

I reached out, letting my fingers brush through his fur, coarse in places and soft in others, grounding myself in the presence of something wholly normal. That, in itself, was absurd. But comforting.

“You know him?” Glenda’s voice came from just behind me, tinged with curiosity. There was something in her tone—not suspicion, exactly, but the sort of interest one reserves for discovering an unexpected thread between strangers.

“Not really,” I said, rising slowly, brushing the dust from my knees. My gaze lifted to meet hers. “I’ve seen pictures.” A memory surfaced—Luke once swiping through his phone on the bus, showing Jane something funny, and the screen flashing briefly with the face of a small dog. “Is Henri here too?”

Glenda’s eyes lit with recognition as she pointed towards the same tent. “In there,” she said with a soft laugh. As if on cue, a second Shih Tzu waddled into view—shorter, fatter, and thoroughly unimpressed by the exertion. He gave a theatrical little huff, then stopped halfway, seemingly deciding the journey wasn’t worth the effort. His pink tongue protruded slightly, giving him a permanently affronted expression.

A breath escaped me—half chuckle, half sigh. It was strange how the presence of two small dogs could carve a gap in the gloom, letting in something close to light.

“Hi,” came a voice—young, tentative. The man stepped forward from the shade of the tent, his hand lifting in a casual wave. “I’m Jamie.”

There was a quiet about him. Not shyness, exactly, but a restraint—like someone used to waiting their turn to speak. His dark hair was flattened on one side, probably from sleep, and his shirt bore a faint patch of something unidentifiable, probably from one of the dogs.

“Ahh,” I said, the name slotting into place like a familiar note in an unfamiliar tune. “Luke’s partner.”

“Yep.” The word was short, almost clipped, but heavy with everything it didn’t say.

His eyes met mine just briefly, and in them I saw something unspoken: grief, perhaps. Or worry. Or that blank, aching space where certainty used to be. Whatever it was, it wrapped itself around the moment like a thin veil.

I nodded gently, offering a small, unintrusive smile. No probing questions. Not yet. The air didn’t seem ready for them.

We stood like that for a beat—four people and two dogs, all swept into the same strange current, unsure of where the shore had gone.

"This is Karen and her husband, Chris,” Glenda announced, her tone gentle but clear, placing us into the scene with a formal sort of care—like adding new names to a register neither of us had ever asked to be on.

"Bus friend Karen?" Jamie asked, his brow furrowing as recognition dawned. His eyes sharpened, studying me more closely, and I saw the name click into place behind them. Luke must've spoken about me, I thought, that odd mix of flattery and discomfort flickering in my chest.

I chuckled softly, the sound more reflex than joy, a little valve releasing some of the pressure that had been building since we arrived. “Yes, that’d be me.” The title, once tied to something small—shared timetables, overheard stories, lukewarm coffees in travel mugs—now carried the weight of displacement, of having crossed a line from the ordinary into something too large to name. Bus friend Karen. It felt like another lifetime.

“I’d normally say nice to meet you,” Jamie said, voice flat, “but this is hardly a fun place to meet in.” The honesty in his words rang out like a cracked bell—true, but unwelcome. It mirrored too closely the hollowness I’d been fighting off, gave shape to what I hadn’t dared admit aloud: that this place wasn’t just unexpected. It was a disappointment. And the longer we stood in it, the more real that became.

The words hung in the air for a beat too long, and I felt the tone shift. Jamie’s presence—his energy—wasn’t just flat. It was draining. Like a low hum of something too negative to ignore, something that threatened to drag the rest of us down with it. I felt it begin to ripple through Chris, who was already tight-jawed and pale from everything we’d seen. He didn’t need this right now. We didn’t.

I shifted my weight, then glanced between Glenda and Jamie—one warm, the other shadowed—and made a quiet, firm decision.

"Do you mind if Chris and I take a moment for a quick chat, just us?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral, steady. I didn’t want to offend, but the need for air—real air, something clean and unclouded—was pulsing beneath my skin.

“Sure,” Glenda replied at once, her gaze softening, the corners of her mouth lifting in a way that said she understood more than I had asked. “A river runs behind the tents. Might make a more pleasant spot for you.”

“Thanks, Glenda,” I said, and I meant it. Her kindness stood out in sharp relief against the dust and weariness of the day.

I took Chris by the arm—not forcefully, just enough to guide him—and we began walking away from the huddle of tents. The air thinned slightly with every step we took, and the thought of water nearby, of something moving and alive, felt like a kind of grace.

We didn’t speak at first. Just the sound of our boots in the dust, the crunch of stone underfoot.

No wind, no birds, no rustling of leaves—because there were no leaves. No trees. No weeds poking through cracked soil. Just rock and dust and the silence of a world untouched by anything green. The absence of life was deafening. Even the sky above seemed too still, its pale clarity somehow oppressive.

"Karen, what are you doing?" Chris asked once we were a safe distance away, his voice laced with confusion and a hint of concern. The so-called tranquillity of the river did little to ease the tension that had coiled between us since Jamie’s greeting.

I turned to face him fully, hearing something in my own breathing—shallow, strained, too quick. The seriousness of our situation landed on me again, cold and absolute, like a weight placed suddenly on the back of my neck. The lines on my face deepened. “Listen to me. I remember Luke telling me about a very specific dream. It was about the role that you and I would play in the new world,” I began, the words rising from some place that didn’t feel entirely mine. Urgency coiled through my chest. It sounded mad, I knew that. But it was all we had. Luke’s madness—or brilliance—might be the only thread we could follow through this strange tapestry.

"Come on, Karen,” Chris interjected, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes narrowed. "That was all just fantasy. All those times you and I talked about it, none of it was real.” The disbelief in his voice wasn’t harsh—just tired. Exhausted, even. The kind of exhaustion that creeps into your bones when everything you once counted on has crumbled.

“Chris,” I cut in, more sharply than I meant to. But he needed to stop. "Quiet yourself,” I said, more gently this time, the firmness giving way to something more urgent than frustrated: hope. “Please.”

He sighed but nodded, closing his eyes. I watched as he forced his breath to steady—shoulders rising and falling, jaw unclenching, that tight line between his brows softening ever so slightly. It wasn’t easy for him, this stillness. But he was trying.

"What does your mind show you?” I prompted gently, the words barely above a whisper. I needed him to try. To believe. To meet me halfway across this madness.

Chris mumbled something low and uncertain—nonsense, maybe—letting the sound blur into the stillness as if testing it. There was no birdsong to interrupt him, no wind to carry his voice away. Just the dry hush of dust settling and the soft rush of the river finding its way downstream.

Clivilius, I thought, if you are there, help him see.

Chris’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at me, and there was something new in his gaze—not certainty, but permission. Openness. His voice was quieter this time, steadier. "I think you're right, Karen,” he said, like someone recognising a road they’d forgotten they'd walked once before.

Just then, the sound of a vehicle near the tents drew my attention, its low rumble cutting cleanly through our quiet conversation like the crack of a branch in still woods. I turned instinctively, eyes narrowing in the bright haze. "Shall we?" I asked, curiosity flickering to life despite the ever-present undercurrent of unease. For all our confusion, the arrival of others meant possibility—perhaps answers, perhaps only more questions, but still, something.

Chris shrugged, a slow lift of the shoulders, neither resistance nor enthusiasm. It was agreement enough. We turned and began walking back towards the camp, the dry ground crunching beneath our boots. The moment by the river had steadied something in me, and though nothing had been resolved, the companionship in Chris’s silence was reassuring. Our bond, often worn thin by tension and doubt, seemed momentarily reinforced by a shared resolve to understand the world we had been pulled into.

As we approached, two young men were climbing down from a dust-caked ute. Its tyres left fresh grooves in the otherwise undisturbed earth, and I found myself wondering how we’d missed any sign of it earlier—where they'd come from, where they might have been. Bixbus had appeared utterly isolated, and yet here they were, casual and breathless with adrenaline, like they’d just returned from a day trip to the beach rather than navigating the void of a lifeless desert.

"That was bloody awesome!" one of them shouted, slapping a high-five into the other’s open palm. His face was flushed with excitement, dust smeared across his cheek like warpaint. The sound of laughter followed, foreign and jarring in this place where every other sound had felt dulled or restrained.

"Apart from clogging up the engine!" the other chimed in, their shared amusement ringing out across the empty landscape. For a brief moment, their joy stirred something unexpected in me—an ache for the simplicity of such moments.

"Guys!" Glenda’s voice rang out across the camp, firm and focused, reeling them back from their joy. "We have two new guests,” she said, and I noticed the subtle shift in her tone. A kind of careful diplomacy had entered her voice, as though she was laying down a new piece on a board she hadn’t finished drawing.

"I wouldn’t call them guests," Jamie’s voice cut in sharply before anyone else could respond. He hadn’t moved far, still hovering near the tents like a permanent fixture. "They’re not going anywhere."

The remark landed like a slap. Sudden, sharp, and uncomfortably true. His words drew a tight silence over the group, sucking the air out of the momentary levity. We were no longer visitors. We were stranded. Jamie’s cynicism didn’t just state the obvious—it branded it into the space between us.

"I'm Paul,” the taller man broke the silence, extending his hand towards us, a gesture that, in its quiet confidence, managed to momentarily bridge the yawning gap between our world and theirs. His hand was rough, calloused—no doubt from work in this harsh place—but the grip was sure, the kind that steadied rather than dominated.

“Chris Owen,” said Chris, stepping forward with a firm handshake, his posture instinctively straightening with a touch of pride. “And this is my wife, Karen,” he added, nodding toward me as if to solidify us as a unit, two souls adrift together in this foreign terrain.

“Nice to meet you, Karen,” Paul said, turning his attention to me. His handshake was neither rushed nor indifferent. There was a warmth in it—a brief, human tether that suggested decency, or perhaps just the unspoken understanding that we were all equally disoriented here. In a world stripped of context, a handshake felt like a lifeline.

Meanwhile, the younger lad introduced himself, first to Chris, then to me. “Kain,” he said, with a slight nod. His grip was confident, his palm surprisingly cool. “Jamie's nephew.”

The name caused a subtle flicker across my features, a small pulse of recognition threading through my thoughts. More connections. Another piece in the web of names that until recently had been confined to Luke’s rambling stories. Those names were real now. Embodied. Breathing.

“Ahh,” I responded, the sound more exhalation than word, acknowledging the link.

Paul gestured lightly in Jamie’s direction. He still stood near the centre tent, rigid and unspeaking, with Henri seated dutifully at his side like a sentinel carved in miniature. “I see you’ve met Jamie then,” Paul added, his voice laced with something that bordered on affection. Or perhaps resignation.

“We’ve only just met,” I replied, and my voice carried a tone of attempted warmth. “But Luke told us a lot about him over the years.” The words left my mouth smoothly, but they felt heavy in the air—weighted with the memory of Luke’s voice, his tone, the way he made even the mundane sound mythical.

“Us?” Chris interjected, his brow furrowed, confusion spilling across his face. “I've never heard his name before.”

His words fell flat, a gentle sting. Not cruel, but revealing—highlighting the gaps between the things I shared with Chris and those I held back, often unintentionally. It was easy to forget, in our shared routines, which stories had travelled between us and which had remained quietly mine.

“Not you, darling. Jane,” I said, turning to him with a soft edge in my voice, not chiding but clarifying.

"Who's Jane?" Kain asked, his curiosity edged with the freshness of youth, the kind that hadn’t yet learnt when not to ask.

Before I could respond, Paul cut in with a note of recognition, his voice brightening. “Oh, you must be one of Luke’s bus friends!”

There it was. The term again. Like a badge that had been pinned to me without ceremony: bus friend. I smiled politely, but inwardly the phrase felt oddly reductive, like a frame too small for the painting it was meant to contain.

“Yes,” I replied simply, and the word seemed to settle into the dust between us. It was easier than explaining the nuance—how the miles between two bus stops had sometimes felt like entire worlds, how conversations shared in the liminal space of public transit could stretch further and deeper than most people ever knew.

Still, as I stood in the dry air of Clivilius, I found myself wondering just how much of our connection had lived in my own mind. Had I been as important to Luke as he’d become to me? Or was I merely one of many—someone who listened, who asked questions, who was curious enough to remember but not close enough to be remembered?

The thought settled like a stone in my stomach, and I pushed it down. There would be time to unpick it later.

"But where is Luke?" Kain asked, his gaze shifting between Chris and me, his question cutting cleanly through the tentative bonds we had only just begun to form with our introductions. It wasn’t accusatory—more curious than anything—but the way it hung in the air made it feel heavier than it should have. Like something dropped unexpectedly into still water, it rippled through all of us.

“He's not here,” I answered after a pause, the words dry on my tongue, reluctant to be spoken. Saying it aloud gave shape to a truth I was still struggling to grasp. The ache of disappointment bloomed freshly in my chest, as if I’d only just realised he truly wasn’t walking up behind us with that awkward half-smile, ready to explain everything.

Paul looked toward Glenda then, a silent question passing between them. His brow was creased, concern etched into the corners of his eyes. Whatever story he expected, he didn’t seem prepared for this one.

“Appears this was another accident,” Glenda said simply, her tone laced with the weariness of someone used to plans going sideways. It was a quiet admission that chaos, perhaps, wasn’t the exception here but the rule. Her voice, steady though subdued, gave the sense that this place—this Bixbus—had long since shed any illusions of predictability.

Kain muttered something low, indistinct, but the cadence of it suggested familiarity, like a shared joke too worn to be funny, or a resigned acknowledgement that accidents came with the territory. I made no move to ask what he’d said.

“Not to be rude,” Paul interjected gently, breaking the brief silence with a tactful shift, “But what do you actually do?” His question was straightforward but not unkind—an attempt, perhaps, to orient us in his understanding. Not just strangers who had dropped out of thin air, but people. With pasts. With purpose.

“I'm an entomologist,” I said, and it surprised me how naturally the word came, how steady I sounded. Like I was recalling an old version of myself—one who wore field boots and took samples, who submitted reports and fought for wetlands no one else cared about. That woman had felt distant only moments ago. Now she was at the surface again.

"A what?" Paul asked, blinking.

“She studies bugs,” Kain jumped in before I could respond, the smirk in his voice betraying how simplified he knew it was.

“Oh,” said Paul, nodding politely, though the confusion never quite left his face.

“Insects,” I corrected, turning slightly toward Kain. My tone was mild, but firm. “Not bugs.” It was a distinction I always made—sometimes to amused colleagues, sometimes to disinterested strangers—but here it felt like a little reclamation of truth. A reminder that words still mattered. That precision still mattered.

Paul seemed no closer to understanding, but he listened, and so I went on, not for his sake, but for mine.

“Well, insects need an environment to thrive,” I explained, brushing a hand through the air as if to indicate the concept itself. “I work with the University of Tasmania to understand how they contribute to ecosystems—pollination, soil health, biodiversity. And I work with local communities and environmental groups to petition for greater protections.”

It felt strange, reciting this here, in a land devoid of trees or even grass, where nothing buzzed or crawled or bloomed. Still, I carried on, because even if Clivilius was silent and dry, the principles of balance and interconnected life were not Earth-exclusive. Maybe especially here, they mattered.

"That's great!" Paul said, the warmth in his voice genuine, even if the words came out a touch too quickly. Encouragement, not comprehension. Still, it was kind.

But even as I nodded, I found myself wondering—what did it mean to be an entomologist in a world without insects? What use were my skills here, in a place where the wind didn’t carry the whine of wings or the flicker of moths in twilight? Could knowledge become ballast? Or would it find a new way to root itself, even in dust?

That question lingered with me, quieter than the others, but somehow more insistent.

He then turned his attention to Chris, perhaps hoping for something more grounded—something easier to grasp than ecological systems and Latin-named beetles. “I do yard work,” Chris stated simply, his voice carrying that quiet, unassuming pride I’d always admired in him. It was such a plain sentence, yet within it lived his entire philosophy—his satisfaction in seeing something grow, his ability to bring order from chaos with a spade, his connection to the earth, no matter which world it was on.

"Yard work?" Kain echoed, puzzled but intrigued, as if trying to picture what that could possibly mean in a place like Bixbus. On Earth, it was so ordinary it barely warranted explanation. Here, where the ground was lifeless and dry, where not even a weed dared to root, the notion must’ve sounded almost mythical.

Chris didn’t answer with words. Instead, he dropped to a crouch and scooped up a handful of the powder-fine dust that clung to everything. The simple gesture was almost ceremonial. The dust sifted slowly through his fingers, like flour with no bread to make, a symbol of everything that was absent here. His silence spoke volumes—the difference between the lush, damp soil he used to tend and the barren grit beneath our feet now.

"It's everywhere!" Paul exclaimed, laughing, but it came out more as disbelief than humour. The dust was relentless, coating boots, clogging machinery, infiltrating tents and lungs and thoughts.

Chris let the last grains fall, then looked up at me. In his eyes, I saw no despair. Just a calm resilience. “Yeah. I've noticed that,” he said, with a half-smile, soft but solid. “But if this is our home now, we'll find a way.”

Something shifted in my chest then, subtle but undeniable. His words settled into me like an anchor. Steadying. They gave form to a thought I hadn’t yet dared shape for myself—that perhaps home wasn’t where you were, but how you chose to be there. And if he was choosing to stay, to make something of this… then I could too.

“Call me crazy. But I trust Luke,” I said aloud, addressing everyone now, letting the conviction behind my words carry me forward. It wasn’t blind faith. It was rooted in something deeper—the accumulation of years spent listening to his strange ideas and recognising, beneath them, a thread of coherence, of purpose.

Jamie scoffed immediately, sharp and derisive. “You're definitely crazy then,” he muttered, crossing his arms. His voice cut through the fragile optimism like flint against stone.

I didn’t flinch. I’d heard that tone before—in boardrooms, in briefing rooms, from land developers and bureaucrats who thought insect conservation was a punchline. Jamie's doubt didn’t wound me. If anything, it reminded me who I was, and why I’d survived as long as I had in a world that often dismissed things it didn’t yet understand.

“A beautiful masterpiece starts with a single brushstroke,” I said, turning my attention to the group at large. My voice was clear, deliberate. “This is our blank canvas. Let’s create a masterpiece. Together.”

The words lingered in the air like morning mist before sunrise—hopeful, uncertain, but full of possibility.

And though none of us said anything in reply, I felt the shift. Not just in Chris beside me, or Paul nodding slowly. But even in the silence from Jamie, who for all his scepticism didn’t walk away. The seed had been planted.

Now we would see what would grow.