St Albans, 1984. An abandoned church converted into a rehearsal space, 6:46 p.m.

The walls are splattered with neon pink paint, with stencils screaming over them: ANARCHY, FUCK THE QUEEN, FUCK THE SYSTEM, THIS IS NOT A PHASE. Your band Shattered Hearts squeezes out of its amps a sound like an explosion in a cathedral. You're wearing a torn T-shirt with a pound sign crossed out, leather trousers with chains, and heavy boots spray-painted with the words NO FUTURE. Your hair is shaved on one side and dyed an acid colour. Around your neck is a spiked collar—a gift from Vexatio, to discourage you from barking at the police.

He comes when your band is on its third take. Vexatio stands in the doorway like a Victorian ghost: an impeccable three-piece suit, a black coat with a velvet collar, a cane with a rose, Plato's Republic tucked under his arm.

His metal glasses gleam under the red neon light. The scar on his cheek is an inky crack against the background of flickering pedal lights.

There are already nineteen years of war between you. He challenged you to a fight at fourteen when you burned his family coat of arms. You broke his nose at sixteen when he called your music the howl of under-politicised puppies. He dragged you out of the police station at seventeen, bribing you with his pocket watch.

But when you scream, "We're the rats in the palace walls!" he recognises himself in those lines. Because he too gnaws at marble foundations, and that is what makes you best friends for life.

Your voice strains at the high notes—you put everything into these lyrics: his felo-de-se attempt, your fights at the drinks machine, the whisper of you are not alone the night his father disinherited him. Vexatio looks down at the floor, where beer cans and crumpled cigarette packs are strewn.

As the last chord fades into the hum of the amplifiers, he claps slowly.

"Hello, darling," says the young man, smiling slyly. Vexatio extends his hand to you in a gentlemanly manner as you leap from the makeshift stage into his arms.