Anyway. Over the next four years, Harv drifted gradually away from me until he was completely absorbed into Liv’s friendship group. We’d almost lost touch altogether by the time everything came crashing down around him.

He found out that Liv had been cheating on him with a stupidly handsome start-up millionaire who’d appeared in one series of Made in Chelsea. They broke up, and I naïvely assumed I would get my best mate back. But he didn’t magically change back into the bloke he once was; instead, he seemed to move even further away from him. He became suddenly and terrifyingly fitness-obsessed; I guess out of concern that his slight chubbiness had been the reason Liv had gone off with the Made in Chelsea guy (who, as I recall, was built like Zac Efron).

It strikes me now, watching Harv bogle around the kitchen in post-coital bliss, that I never talked to him about any of this at the time. We fell slowly and cautiously back into friendship, but I never once properly checked whether he was OK. I never once offered anything beyond the cursory ‘Ah, buck up, mate, plenty more fish’ platitudes. I probably told myself this was because we were blokes, and blokes didn’t really talk about that stuff. But that’s bollocks, really. I was too wrapped up in myself, and my own problems.

I think back suddenly to Christmas Eve 2020, in the pub, feeling that disconnect between us – that inability to ever talk about anything real, anything important. It all started here, really; this was the period when our friendship first began to unravel. Not just because he hooked up with a girl I couldn’t stand, but because I was too self-involved to be there for him when it all went to shit.

Maybe that’s what today is all about, then. Maybe that’s why I’m back here, on this specific day. Am I supposed to tell him what will happen in the future? Surely he wouldn’t believe me even if I did?

Harv interrupts my thought process by opening the fridge and asking, ‘Have you fed Ghostface and Raekwon?’

I stare at him. ‘The … Oh, right, the goldfish?’

‘No, the Staten Island-based rap duo. Yes, the goldfish.’ He clicks his tongue. ‘What is wrong with you this morning, man?’

‘Sorry, I’m just feeling a bit … off, I guess.’

‘So, is it a yes or a no to the feeding?’

‘It’s a no.’

‘Right.’ He takes the fish food out of the fridge and glances up at the clock. ‘Aren’t you going to work?’

God. Shit. Maybe I am. I find myself just staring blankly at him again, with absolutely no idea what to say. Since I’ve no idea when exactly I am, I also have no idea what exactly it is I do.