“Don’t panic!” said Jeremy. “I’ve got it all under control. Karen, where’s the Spanish dictionary? And where’s my comb?!”

“The car will be here in a minute, Jeremy – are you sure you don’t want to sit down and have a cup of tea with me and Jamie? You’re sweating quite a lot.”

“Tea!” squealed Jeremy. “There’s no time for TEA! And I told you not to panic! I’ve got it under control!”

Karen and Jamie sat on the couch and smiled as they watched Jamie’s stepdad desperately wrestling with his tie as he attempted to achieve the perfect knot. Jamie could also see that Jeremy had a small bogey dangling from his left nostril. He’d leave it for a bit and tell him about it in the car. Probably.

It was certainly true that Jamie hadn’t always got on with Jeremy. In fact, when his mum had first started going out with him – this boring guy she’d met working at the hospital – Jamie had thought he was a bit of a clown.

But in the last couple of years, he’d begun to understand why they were together and why they needed each other. And, compared to his dad, who had hurt Jamie more times than he could remember, at least Jamie knew one thing for certain: Jeremy would never let him or his mum down.

Jamie had told them both everything that had happened as soon as he’d got back from the park. When his mum had asked how he felt about living abroad, Jamie had simply replied that he would go to another solar system to play for Barcelona and, anyway, if he had Jack with him, he’d feel comfortable just about anywhere.

As he wasn’t great with contracts and numbers, he’d asked his mum and Jeremy to go down to London with him to meet the Barcelona delegation. He’d asked Jack to come too but she had to go back to the newspaper office to write up the story of the transfer itself. This was big news.

Still, Jeremy loved the fact that Jamie had asked for his help. He seemed to think that Jamie wanted him to personally negotiate the terms of the contract with Barcelona and, as a result, had got himself into such a state that neither Jamie nor his mum had quite been able to calm him down.

“Right! That’ll be them!” Jeremy shouted somewhat manically as the doorbell went. “I knew they’d be early. I told you there was no time for tea. This is no time for TEA! This is it. You two don’t say anything. Leave everything to me! I’ll do all the talking.”

And with that, the three of them made their way towards the sleek black Mercedes Benz that had been sent to their home to whisk them down the motorway to London.

As they left, Jamie took a quick look around the old house that had been his home since he and his mum had needed to quickly find somewhere new to live after his dad had left them both so suddenly that dark morning twelve years before. It was a morning that had changed his life for ever.

It had been tough on his mum, he knew, bringing up a son by herself, but they had been happy enough here. The house was not big, but it had been home, and that was all that mattered.

Now, as Jamie closed the door behind them, he had an uncanny feeling that his life was, once again, about to change for ever.