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The hall and the stairs, the front room and the kitchen and even the walk-in cupboard of the flat were covered in framed posters, newspaper stories and flyers for past political events. On the wall next to the stairs, two anti-apartheid posters provided a sunburst of clarity and engagement, along with a green tapestry in support of a united Ireland. Dotted between them were postcards of Hebridean islands, which his mother had loved, far-off Scottish places that became dreamscapes to her, represented on the landing by pink sunsets over the Summer Isles.

Milo’s bedroom gathered around a mainframe computer. He also had a laptop, sitting open amid a sea of books and T-shirts. He’d stuck handwritten and printed slogans above his desk and along the top of his bed, between various photos.



The Internet is now the central nervous system of our civilisation, and our task, our obligation, is to reverse the unnatural order, and civilise the Internet and improve the world. He had a good relationship with his dad; he felt free to experiment and get excited by his own life. But Ray was in charge, even though he was quiet in his ways, the guardian of the family’s potential.

They lived in that flat in a circle of pain about his late mother, Zemi, and in a state of deferred hope about the future. Since November, Ray had become a more remote person; other than to Milo, he said very little and saw very few. It was his wife who had animated him and now he was holding onto himself.

But in th.

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