At the very least, what I should be doing tonight is an online search for the woman who gave me up. Any normal person would be desperate to put a face to the name – especially if it’s one they’ve waited almost their entire life to hear.

I am not most people, though, and neither am I normal. So, instead, I have come back to the pub to meet Billy, and so far I have done a sterling job of convincing him – and myself – that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me.

‘Nice shot, Nash.’

Billy grins at me from across the pool table, and raises his half-empty pint glass in a salute. I have just potted three yellow balls off the break, and now I am limbering up for a fourth.

‘She shoots, she scores,’ I throw back, slamming the cue so hard against the white that it ricochets forwards and sends two of Billy’s red balls hurtling across the floor of the pub.

‘Whoa there!’ Billy laughs as he tries and fails to catch them. ‘Any harder and you’ll take out the windows.’

It is not the first time the two of us have played pool together in this setting – it could easily be the two-hundredth – but none of the previous occasions was an official date. This is the first of those, and it’s every bit as weird as I hoped it wouldn’t be.

‘Two shots,’ I say, taking the opportunity to get stuck into my glass of white wine. I have been avoiding alcohol at home, but this evening it feels necessary. Anything that can ease this awful feeling of having the rug yanked out from under me is worth a punt – or a pint. Now if only they sold wine in those …

Billy always looks rather ridiculous when he is bent over the pool table. He has the body shape of one of those inflatable air dancers that you sometimes see outside car dealerships, all lanky limbed and square-headed. That is not to say that my old friend is not attractive, however, because he very much is. He has amiable pale-grey eyes, a liberal spray of Irish freckles and masses of conker-brown curls, not to mention the metabolism of an Olympic sprinter. Before we started this game, I watched him inhale a bacon double cheeseburger with all the sides, and now he’s tucking into a bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps.

‘Want one?’ he offers.

My mouth is full of wine, so I decline with a shake of my head, deciding privately that there’s no way he can be expecting a kiss at the end of the night. Not even Billy would be foolish enough to season his mouth with such a strong flavour if he thought there was any chance of it coming into contact with mine. He does keep glancing over at me, though, perhaps not in a suggestive way, but more with an expression of concern.