Years ago I had various steel frames made over which tarpaulin could be draped with ventilation flaps so heaters could be used. My men — and a few women — worked in the dry, with heat available no matter the weather. To be sure, they worked in jackets and padded shirts, thermal socks and steel-capped DMs — but they worked, they earned money. They developed an easy rhythm to their days, a camaraderie born of working and living in a small city, a shared work experience, a shared circle of friends. They passed packets of shag to each other during their breaks, reached over with mugs of whisky-laced coffee, lent each other money and stood each other rounds in pubs. They read aloud laughable passages from newspapers to each other as they leaned against columns, walls, bags of cement, under the snug canopy of the tarpaulin. They could break from work when they wanted, there was no routine. I knew them all well, respected most of them and valued the rest, knew them well enough to know that they were working as hard, as proficiently, as they were able. Occasionally I’d duck under a canvas doorway and look around, to see them planing, chiselling, sawing, chamfering, routering, drilling, clamping. And they would glance up at me with the glazed eyes of people who are focused on other things. All of them, that is, except Darren Whiteside, who stood alone, headset pressed to his ears, staring at the floor, twitching to an unheard beat.

Eventually I had no choice but to send him to Cotham Grove, to the home of Psychobitch. The team there needed a gofer, someone to cut lengths of pine, someone to hold a donkey as they sawed. No one else had the lack of skills, so I sent him.

‘I don’t know how he’ll get on,’ I said to Sonja that night, as I stacked logs on the fire. I just don’t see the point of him. He doesn’t do anything, he can’t do anything. He doesn’t seem to contribute anything to the world. Why on earth did he come back?’

‘He didn’t really have a choice. If he doesn’t turn up he doesn’t get the money.’ She was lying on the settee, crumpled newspaper in her hands.

‘Jesus. I feel like giving him fifty quid a week to stay away.’

She smiled and turned back to her paper as I sat, my back against the coffee table, a glass of whisky in my hand. I watched her turning the pages, tried to imagine the rustle they made but it was too faint a memory to recall clearly. I watched her focus on a story, pulling the pages closer, frowning slightly.

‘I still love you,’ I said, not hearing the declaration.

She lowered the paper slowly and turned her face to me. I had known her face for more than twenty years and yet I didn’t recognise her expression, lit by the flames. It was a mingling of sadness, gratitude and exasperation, with a dash of wearied adoration thrown in. I didn’t know what to do with it. So I apologised.