Nick Jessop was standing behind his table looking like a distraught kangaroo that had lost its joey. A baby sling hung forlornly empty against his tall frame as he watched with an uneasy smile on his face while young Tarquin’s considerable bulk, resplendently dressed in a minute Chelsea Football Club team shirt, was being repeatedly thrown into the air and caught again in the arms of a thin, elderly woman with a squiggly lipsticked mouth and mirrored splodges of rouge on each of her sunken cheeks. Every now and again, she would cease her physical efforts to be fortified by a good slurp of gin and tonic and a deep drag on her cigarette. Then, encouraged by the child’s gurning for more, she would again launch him into the air, her knees visibly buckling and a coughing wheeze being forced from her chest every time she clamped her arms around Tarquin’s hurtling form. Dan thought it not unlike watching a spider trying to catch a cannonball.

His arrival at the table was enough to break the attention being granted to the circus act, and Nick, with obvious relief, managed to retrieve his only child from the clutches of the woman.

“Thank God you arrived,” he breathed out, as he wedged Tarquin into the corner of the velour-covered bench, stopping his protestations by sticking a pacifier in his mouth. “I was just waiting for the moment when she got her timing wrong and took a swig and a drag when Tarquin was still midair.”

“Well, I’m afraid that you do slightly ask for it,” Dan replied, placing his pint on the table and pulling out the chair that Nick had been saving for him. “You shouldn’t keep bringing him in here.”

“Not an option, I’m afraid. Laura is working fulltime now, and we haven’t got any help in the house. Anyway, he likes being gregarious, don’t you, my”— he leaned down over his son and blew a raspberry on his nylon-shirted tummy—“cheeky, cheeky chappie!”

“So, how’s life treating you?” Dan asked in an attempt to get the conversation back to adult level.

Nick made minor adjustments to Tarquin’s position before turning his attention to Dan. “Not bad, actually. In fact, I’ve got something here that I think might interest you.” He reached down under the table and pulled out a battered leather briefcase. He gave Dan a wink as he opened it and extracted a sheet of A4 paper. “Are you ready for this?”

“I can’t wait,” Dan replied with only a fraction of the enthusiasm being displayed by his friend.