‘A Slattern will set you right, kid,’ said John Mosely, discreetly, and he manoeuvred his big bones barwards.

Poor Mo was wordless as he stared into the ale that was put before him. Billy Stroud sneaked a time-out signal to Big John.

‘We’d nearly give Henderson’s a miss,’ agreed John.

‘As well get back to known terrain,’ said Everett.

We climbed the hot streets towards the station. We stocked up with some Cumberland Pedigrees, 3.4 per cent to volume, always an easeful drop. The train was busy with daytrippers heading back. We sipped quietly. Mo looked half dead as he slumped there but now and then he’d come up for a mouthful of his Pedigree.

‘How’s it tasting, kiddo?’ chanced Everett.

‘Like a ten,’ said Mo, and we all laughed.

The flicker of his old humour reassured us. The sun descended on Colwyn Bay and there was young life everywhere. I’d only spoken to her once since Ormskirk. We had details to finalise, and she was happy to let it slip about her new bloke. Some twat called Stan.

‘He’s emotionally spectacular,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry to hear it, love,’ I said. ‘Given you’ve been through the wringer with me.’

‘I mean in a good way!’ she barked. ‘I mean in a calm way!’

We’d a bit of fun coming up the Dee Estuary with the Welsh place names.

‘Fy … feen … no. Fiiiif … non … fyff … non … growy?’

This was Tom N.

‘Foy. Nonn. Grewey?’

This was Everett’s approximation.

‘Ffynnongroew,’ said Billy Stroud, lilting it perfectly. ‘Simple. And this one coming up? Llannerch-y-mor.’

Pedigree came down my nose I laughed that hard.

‘Young girl, beautiful,’ said Mo. ‘Turn around and she’s forty bloody three.’

‘Leave it, Mo,’ said Big John.

But he could not.

‘She’s come over early in ’86. She’s living up top of the Central line, Theydon Bois. She’s working in a pub there, live-in, and ringing me from a phone box. In Galway I’m in a phone box too – we have to arrange the times, eight o’clock on Tuesday, ten o’clock on Friday. It’s physical fucking pain she’s not in town any more. I’ll follow in the summer is the plan and I get there, Victoria Coach Station, six in the morning, eighty quid in my pocket. And she’s waiting for me there. We have an absolute dream of a month. We’re lying in the park. There’s a song out and we make it our song. “Oh to be in England, in the summertime, with my love, close to the edge”.’

‘Art of Noise,’ said Billy Stroud.

‘Shut up, Billy!’

‘Of course the next thing the summer’s over and I’ve a start with BT up here and she’s to follow on, October is the plan. We’re ringing from phone boxes again, Tuesdays and Fridays but the second Friday the phone doesn’t ring. Next time I see her she’s forty bloody three.’

Flint station we passed through, and then Connah’s Quay.

‘Built up, this,’ said Tom N. ‘There’s an Aldi, look? And that’s a new school, is it?’