Joe looked at him sideways and the dog looked back at him, as if waiting for him to say something. So he did say something. “Normally,” Joe began, “normally I talk to myself, and not because I’m mad, not much anyway. It’s because I like the sound of a voice, any voice. It’s silences I don’t like. Marion and me, we used to chat away all the time, and I miss that. I like the radio, like the sound of the water lapping around the barge, the ducks and the Canada geese – bit too noisy sometimes, they are, especially first thing in the morning. I expect you’d like to talk if you could, wouldn’t you? But since you can’t, I’ll have to do the talking for the both of us, won’t I?” The dog was licking his lips and panting. He seemed to be smiling, and he seemed to be listening too.

“I know what you’re thinking, Paddywack. You’re thinking: ‘Who is this funny old bloke driving around in a van that looks like a giant potato.’ You don’t know the first thing about me, do you? So here it comes: potted history of Joe Mahoney, otherwise known as the Tattyman. Age sixty-nine. Car mechanic, learned it in the army, fixing Land Rovers, lorries, that sort of thing. Mr Fixit, Marion used to call me – she called me a lot of other stuff too, come to think of it.” He chuckled then.

“I had this shed out at the back of the house, my workshop, and she’d ring the bell when it was time for tea. Sometimes I wouldn’t hear it because I was always sawing or planing or drilling. Then I’d come in a bit late, and we’d have a right old row. But we fixed that too. ‘Never let the sun go down on a quarrel,’ she’d say, and we never did. She’d get mad at me because the tea was cold. Could she get mad at me!”

His laughter turned suddenly to tears. “Don’t take any notice. I’ve done quite a bit of crying over the past few years, I can’t seem to stop myself. Silly old fool I am. Well, she went and got ill, didn’t she? Parkinson’s disease it was. Not much at first – her head shook a little that’s all. But then later when it got bad, she needed a lot of looking after. That’s when I had to give up the regular job in the garage, and bought the Tattyvan – so I could be my own boss. I’d only go out in the Tattyvan when she was well enough to leave. Things worked out fine too, for a while. But then she got worse and she could see I wasn’t coping any more. I said it was fine, but she wouldn’t listen. She insisted. She said she’d go into Fairlawns, the nursing home down the road, and we had a bit of a row about that too. But she talked me round, like she always did.