It felt odd, like showing somebody around my house for the first time. I realized how many things had accumulated on the floor. Robbie picked up the Beano. ‘Dennis the Menace!’ he cried. ‘You regressive old git!’

‘It’s not for me,’ I said. ‘It’s for my son.’

I had started the engine. He leaned forward. ‘Left at the lights,’ he said. ‘Your son?’

I told him about it: how Edward wasn’t Barry’s but mine. I think he was a bit pissed, that’s why he didn’t sound surprised. I was a touch oiled, too, because tonight it seemed the most natural thing in the world, to suddenly want to look for my son. After all, what’s a few years, give or take a decade?

He said: ‘Take one of mine! I’ve got plenty to spare.’ He chuckled. ‘One less nappy to change.’

Alarmed, I said: ‘I’ve never changed a nappy.’

‘Come on, say yes. Do me a favour. There’s nothing in the world as detumescing,’ he intoned, ‘as a houseful of kids.’

We drove through the streets of Kendal. It was only 8.30 but the place was deserted; it’s like that in country towns. Tall stone buildings, like cliffs, reared up on either side. We passed a mill with its smoking chimney. Streetlamps glowed. I felt we were on the stage of some comic opera from Dickens’s time. I wasn’t here; by now my journey seemed unreal. I was locked into some epic voyage that would take me across Britain, all odd views and odd people and blind, unlikely cul-de-sacs.

‘Bugger women,’ I said.

‘Bugger ’em.’

‘They’re all bitches.’

‘Piff’s not a bitch.’ He sighed. ‘Let me tell you something, Desmond, oh sonless one, coach driver extraordinaire, lost soul in this universe of keening men, menopausal malcontent in this long pub-crawl we call life—’

‘Get on with it.’

‘What was I saying?’

‘Bitches.’

‘Bitches. Yours might’ve been bitches, but take it from me, it’s much, much, much worse when they’re nice.’ He leant forward and pointed. ‘Second on the left. Most women use sledgehammers. Piff, on the other hand, uses the microstrobic—microspitic—minuscule, minute, highly-tuned needle-sharp instruments of a Nobel-prize-winning brain surgeon. Here! Stop.’

I stopped, with a judder, outside a row of cottages. We climbed down. He spent a while searching for his door-keys. The door opened. A gaunt, beautiful girl dressed like a refugee stood amidst the ruins.

‘Piff, this is my old mate Desmond,’ he shouted.

‘Desmond, this is my wife Philippa.’ Children’s cries drowned his voice. ‘He’s come to buy one of the kids!’

‘Your mother came round,’ she said. The ruins she stood amongst were children’s toys. A small boy leapt on Robbie, like a monkey, and slid down again. Robbie scooped him up and lifted him above his head.

‘Darling,’ she said warningly.

‘I’m perfectly okay,’ he said. ‘Look, no hands!’

‘I didn’t know where you were, so I gave her some coffee. She sat here for hours. I haven’t even bathed the children yet. She caught Gavin eating the cat’s food.’