‘Morning, Dad.’

Annie was peeping at him from behind the bulk of a huge man who was about to send the breakfast shift into meltdown.

Her hair was tied in a tight ponytail which showed her fine features to full effect. She rarely used make up and this was one of those occasions where she wore none at all. He liked to see her without make up because he could still make out the last traces of his self-conscious, awkward little girl that would all too soon be gone forever.

He circumnavigated the bulk between them.

‘Good morning, love. You look magnificent.’

‘One of us has to. You look like shit!’

He turned to see if the big man was showing any interest, but he had already disappeared into the lift and was impatiently holding the door for them.

Cormac signalled for him to descend without them.

‘You know I don’t sleep very well in hotels. Anyway, I am 40 – I’m supposed to look like shit in the mornings.’

‘It’s good you are going for a run, though. You haven’t run for over a week.’

‘You sound like my personal trainer.’

‘It’s not that. I just like to see you get some exercise because your diet is crap.’

‘My diet is not all bad. If anything I would say I am a bit of a ‘yo-yo’ dieter.’

‘Yeah – unfortunately, the only ‘yo-yos’ in your diet are the mint flavoured ones you dunk in your coffee!’

‘Annie, has anyone ever told you that you are a comedian?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ever think that might be because you are not very funny?’

By the time he walked her to the breakfast restaurant, the four pints of Guinness had come up on the blind side of his trainers and stormed into an unassailable lead. He told himself he would definitely run tomorrow and in view of what Annie had said about his diet, he would join her and outmanoeuvre her on the healthy breakfast stakes.

The young Polish waitress from last night met them at the door and showed them to a table next to the window. It was adjacent to their friend from the lift, who was idly reading the Wall Street Journal, but paying considerably more attention to the thick beef sausage on the end of his fork. This only reinforced Cormac’s desire to start the day with a healthy choice. The Polish waitress was back at their table and it seemed to Cormac she was now doing a more than passable impression of Tom Conti’s character in Local Hero: a quirky little film he’d enjoyed a few years previously where Conti was the pub landlord, postmaster, and just about everything else in his little village.

‘Madame?’

‘Fruit juice, poached eggs and wholemeal toast, please.’

He looked up at Annie. Good choice, but not nearly good enough! She had clearly left the ‘iced water and muesli’ door ajar for him to claim the smug healthy breakfast trophy for today!