‘I’m sorry about Langie,’ he says finally, ‘he’s an old friend. Well, not really a friend, you know? Just someone who used to hang out with my brother. Used to come round ours and scrounge sugar butties after school.’

‘You have a brother?’

‘Yeah. And two sisters. And a half sister somewhere over Blackburn way. I never see her. I try not to see any of them if I’m honest. They’re all off their heads.’

‘I always wanted a sister.’

‘Right. But what I’m trying to say is – I used to be mixed up in all kinds of shit. I want to be straight with you because you’re different. You’re not–’ he waves his hands around searching for a word.

‘What?’

‘I dunno. There’s just something about you. I don’t want to lie.’

He’s looking at me, right into my eyes and I don’t look away. This prickling down the back of my neck. I don’t know if it’s excitement or a warning.

It’s turning into one of those nights. Everything blurring, the lights and the voices. Someone, somewhere laughing too loud. I tell Ian about work, the young lads trying to smuggle condoms out in their jacket pockets and Gary behind the photo counter who holds his magnifying glass up against all the negatives hoping for a topless sunbather in the back of someone’s holiday shots. Ian’s eyes screw up at the corners when he laughs. He’s hanging on every word. I think about Mum’s face when I told her I was dropping out of college to work full time at Boots. ‘You’ll regret it,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘just mark my words.’ But I don’t regret it. Writing essays about dead men from history who did things that don’t matter anymore. I can’t regret anything on a night like this, with a man like this, whose eyes are a new colour every time he blinks. It’s not like he’s even that good looking. But there’s something about him, electricity in his fingertips. His hand brushes mine as he reaches for his glass and everything stops. I can’t for the life of me remember what it was I was saying.

A bell rings and we both sit up.

‘Last orders please, gentlemen!’

The pub is still heaving. Ian looks at his watch. ‘No way. No way it’s that time already.’

I stretch my legs out and roll my shoulders back. ‘I’ve got work in the morning,’ I say. ‘Bloody Claire. Persuades me to come out and then can’t even be bothered to turn up.’

‘Some friend,’ he says, ‘where do you live?’

I tell him and he laughs. ‘Seriously? We’re almost neighbours then. I’m in the flat above the bookie’s just round the corner.’

‘Piss off!’

‘I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.’