I killed a man on a train with a knife, except when I look at the knife after the event, it's a pen. Then I run away. Not a sprint down the carriages but a real 39 Steps in the making.

I open the carriage door, jump out while the train is crossing a bridge, plunge into obnoxious black water, rise to the top gasping for air to find myself magically transported from a stretch of water nobody should ever find themselves in - possibly the Thames - into a clear shallow stream somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland.

I drag myself out, a heavy coat dragging behind me and sit on the bank next to a man who looks like Tom Waits but I know is supposed to be my old man.

We exchange pleasantries.

“Did you do it.”

“I did not. Did you?”

“I think I did.”

“That’s a real shame,” he says.

The next time I look, my father has turned into Tom Waits for real.

He pulls a full size piano from one pocket, a stool from the other and proceeds to play his song, New Coat Of Paint on the riverbank.