I pick the deck of Top Trumps off the floor and go to pass them to him. I haven’t clapped eyes on them since Year Six. They’re all crinkled and biffed at their corners. Something about the top card holds my attention. Porsche 911 GT3. I know the stats without looking. Staring at the little photo of the car, for a second I am somewhere else. A classroom on one of those balmy summer-term afternoons, no greater care than dodging a detention for playing cards with Amit under the desk. We collected many of them in our time.

‘Happy memories, huh?’ Amit says through a stuffed mouth.

I flick through the deck. The nostalgia feels like an ache in my chest as I uncover each little picture.

‘Get dealing,’ he says.

‘No,’ I say, placing the stack on the chair.

‘Do you remember that history lesson,’ he asks, ‘about the First World War? What Mrs Slade said about the British and the Germans? How they stopped fighting and had a football match at Christmas. Then went back to shooting each other.’

I shrug.

‘Reckon that really happened?’ he asks.

‘Guess so.’

‘So one minute they’re blowing each other’s heads off, the next they’re playing football together?’ he says, untangling the rubber band round the deck. ‘Not friends, but having a game all the same?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Do you remember who won?’ Amit says, shuffling the pack. ‘The footie I mean, not the war.’

‘The Germans, I suppose.’

The obvious punchline occurs to us both at the same time. We say it almost in unison. ‘On penalties!’

The laughter is genuine. Then awkward. Then gone.

He pushes the hand he’s dealt me into my palm. ‘Power: 690 bhp,’ he says as soon as I take hold of the cards.

I gaze down at my top card. Why is that little image of a red Ferrari so reassuring? Why do I almost feel safe as I look at it?

‘Power: six hundred and ninety bhp,’ Amit whispers.

I scan through the data below the picture. Slowly, I peel the card from my hand and pass it to him.

We play without saying anything more than our chosen stats. Within minutes, he’s holding three-quarters of the pack. He’s visibly irritated when I don’t play Top Speed from my Bugatti Veyron SS card. At 268 mph, we both know it can’t be trumped.

‘They’re all jealous of you, you know that?’ he says suddenly.

‘Well, that’s bollocks.’

‘Morky, you ace everything without even trying.’

‘Not any more I don’t.’

He ignores my point. ‘I’ve never been jealous of you. I was always just glad you wanted to be my mate.’

‘Shut up, Amit.’

‘What did I ever do?’ he asks. ‘What did I do to upset you so badly? So badly you never wanna talk to me? So badly you lied to get me in the shit?’