Clive Wilson is a diffident young man much influenced by his parents. Late one Saturday afternoon just before Christmas he crosses the High Street and is about to proceed when for some reason he feels an urge to look back. A young boy is stepping into the road, apparently unaware of an oncoming Range Rover.
Clive dashes out to scoop him back but has misjudged: with a split-second decision he shoves the boy out of harm's way but is himself hit.
'The impact threw him into the air. The trajectory he described seemed to last an age, without pain, offering a crazy view of the High Street, its festive shop-windows, its stars and angels. He just had time to say to himself "I am being killed" before he collided with the merciless solidity of the roadstone and knew nothing more.'
Weeks later, convalescing, he reflects that getting hit by that Range Rover might have been the first real thing that has ever happened to him.
And so it proves.