Man of the house, that’s what people told that twelve-year-old to become. And he’d felt ready for it. Even back then, Alfie Lim was someone who, when given a job, would be bloody good at it. He and his dad had spent their Saturday nights watching Jackie Chan movies, the Die Hard franchise, all the Batman iterations. Alfie didn’t just know how to be a man, he knew the gold standard.

For a couple of years they got by OK. But his mum was struggling, dark shadows growing ever larger around her. She battled on, but having five kids younger than Alfie to care for plus a fifty-hour-a-week job in a betting shop proved too much. Eventually, her boss’s patience ran dry with the late starts and the absent-mindedness. With no money coming in, only Alfie stood between five young mouths and an empty table.

Charming and astute, at fourteen Alfie was passing for older than his years. Looking up old contacts of his dad’s, he soon had a sideline going in fake-label clothes. Word got round in no time, kids approaching him in the playground, and Alfie stepping outside the gates to show off the stock from a Gray Nicolls cricket bag he’d nicked from a visiting private school team. His pride one mufti day when half the school turned out in knock-offs he’d supplied almost brought a tear to his eye. On good weeks, his hustle kept the household in breakfasts, a full complement of toiletries, even a takeaway here and there.

Alfie enjoys the memory as he walks in the fog, only the polished steel rails guiding him to his destination. He’d been busy, defined by his success. Activity breeds activity – not only was business booming but he found the time and energy for school, too, his grades better than ever. He had too much on to be constantly aware of the void his father had left. His little siblings, used to going without, wanted for less than ever, and that small fact made their own loss less apparent, too. Things were OK. Hard work, but OK.

There are firsts in life that are carved on to our brains. For Alfie, they are the spring Sunday afternoon, green and breezy, when, aged seven, he rode pillion on his dad’s old Honda for the first time; the moment a softly spoken man with a pink pocket square told him and his mum that his dad wouldn’t make it; the first time he was naked in front of a girl; the first time, aged fifteen, that he did cocaine.