‘All right, babe?’ Gavin greeted me as we walked towards the bar, his arm draped over the Foster’s pump, exposing his McDonald’s tattoo.

I smiled sweetly to avoid being put on some kind of hit list and gave Dale a tenner to get the drinks in, the first step in my bridge-building process.

While heading to our usual spot in the corner beneath the broken wall-mounted TV, I noticed the pool table was free. I’d hoped we’d have a game, break the ice. Dale loved pool but lacked any skill, so I figured he might hate me less if I let him win. The previous player had possibly attempted the same technique. The reds had been potted; the yellows remained. Or they could have just been crap at it. Like Dale.

I didn’t think he’d agree to the outing. He’d been avoiding me for days. Staying out late, leaving before I woke. Knowing he was slipping away scared me and I needed his friendship back.

You’d been at Harley Street since Tuesday. They were down a couple of doctors apparently, so I hadn’t seen you at all. You didn’t answer any of my calls. Never returned them. Not that I’d coherently planned what to say even if you had. Except on the Wednesday when I was eating lunch in the staffroom, zoning out to Alison’s grain-by-grain, fold-by-fold recipe for an eggless chocolate cake and my phone lit up with your name. Elated, I nearly choked on my ploughman’s baguette.

‘Hey . . . hi,’ I said, getting up and leaving Alison mid-sentence.

No words greeted me back. Only strange beeping noises and the mumbling of voices.

‘Hello . . . hello.’ Then I realized it was a pocket call and you were at a supermarket self-checkout.

‘We should have a game,’ I said as Dale returned with our drinks.

He dropped the change onto the sticky table and shrugged before sitting and supping his pint. The removal of the glass uncovered a froth moustache in place of his usual sweat one.

I sipped on my vodka and Coke, ignored the tension, pushed on through. ‘So you’re doing OK, then?’

‘Yeah, all right.’ He stared straight ahead. Picked up his beer again.

‘So work’s OK?’

‘Yes . . . You’ve already asked me that.’

‘Sorry. Call of Duty?’

‘At the Nazi zombies.’

‘Oh good . . . good.’ I gulped half my drink. ‘So, do you fancy a game of pool, then?’

I could see a minute twitch beneath his eye. He could never turn down a game of anything.

‘If we have to,’ he said.

We transferred the dire atmosphere to the other side of the pub and he racked up the balls. I filled the silence by vigorously chalking my cue.

‘You break,’ he said.

When the white barely disturbed the colours, he didn’t laugh as he ordinarily would, or joke about my comparison to Paul Newman in The Hustler.