"The festival," he says, flat clarification. Obviously. "The thing I was helping you out by saying you should leave."

Nothing the guy was saying had changed that recommendation. It wasn't like it didn't make sense to Murphy, didn't ring true on some level to his own experiences. He's lived never knowing if the next person he meets will kill him or be an ally, or maybe one and then the other. Trust was a thing earnt rather than freely given, and it could be broken with one single action, one single word. But it still, always, took some kind of leap - or tiny step - of faith.

"Which isn't 'get over it', by the way. It's more like 'that's the deep end, and you can't swim.'"

Not that Murphy could swim, but the analogy worked fine enough.