The kid shook his head, and privately Abbott gave him the all-clear. He reached to ruffle the kid’s hair. ‘Just you stay out of trouble, you hear?’ He pointed to himself. ‘You don’t want to end up looking like this, do you?’

Abbott let himself out of the front door of the B&B, thinking that maybe all was not lost after all. Perhaps there was enough of him inside, enough of the man from before.

The feeling didn’t last long. It lasted about as long as it took to make his way to The Sportsman, knock on the locked door and see the expression Nigel wore when he opened it.

‘You’re fackin’ barred.’

Nigel seemed about to close the door on him but stopped himself. ‘And do me a favour, would you, pal? Take off that facking T-shirt.’

Abbott stepped back, flapping open his black overshirt to reveal the T-shirt beneath in all its glory. ‘What? I thought you’d be pleased, mate. Flying the flag and all that.’

‘It rather depends on who’s flying the flag, doesn’t it? Because just between you and me, pal, you ain’t looking too lively.’

‘Yeah, I get that a lot. Listen, look, just give me my jacket. I’ll zip it up, nobody will see the T-shirt, I won’t darken your door again.’

Nigel rolled his eyes but seemed to soften. ‘Nah, it’s all right, you can come in, like. There’s something I need to tell you, anyway.’

Abbott sat on a stool suddenly feeling very thirsty indeed. Nigel threw him a disapproving expression but began to pour him a pint anyway, and Abbott thought it was just about the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

‘Greg collapsed yesterday,’ said Nigel, placing the pint down in front of Abbott. ‘He was taken to hospital.’

Abbott looked at the drink thirstily, but in a bid to project a sense of being in control of his drinking, did not automatically reach for it. ‘Who’s Greg?’

Nigel shook his head. ‘Greg was the bloke you was about to beat up last night.’

‘I wasn’t about to beat him up, and what do you mean “taken to hospital”? We didn’t even touch each other.’

Nigel looked evenly at him. ‘You sure about that? Do you remember anything about last night? Just that I’m hoping that you wasn’t quite yourself, like.’

‘Why? What did I do?’

‘It wasn’t what you did. It was what you said. You and Greg sitting here, having an argument about who had it worse. Greg told you he had cancer. You was like, “I’d rather have cancer than a dead son.”’

Abbott felt his shoulders drop, his gaze fall away. ‘I said that, did I?’

‘Yes, you said it. Whole facking pub heard you say it, pal.’