“Do you?” Milton laid the chip down and rested his finger atop it, self-consciously covering the scene on the back. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s something that weak men use to give themselves a pat on the back and tell themselves that they’re doing well. It’s a waste of time.”

“Don’t know if I agree with that.”

“Don’t really give a shit what you think.”

“I’m in the Fellowship.”

“Seriously?” Milton scoffed. “You work in a bar.”

“I needed a job. This was all I could get.”

“Okay. Whatever.”

The bartender was in his early thirties, had a hipsterish beard and was dressed in monochrome colours. He scratched his neck, revealing a sleeve of tattoos, but did not look as if he was going to take the hint and leave Milton alone. Milton stared at him, but, for once, it didn’t have the effect that he expected.

The bartender put out a hand. “I’m Daitaro, by the way.”

Milton ignored it. “I’m not really interested in a conversation.”

Daitaro held his eye. “I’ve been going for a month. Thirty-two days, actually. They say you should do a meeting a day for the first thirty, right? That’s what I’ve done. It’s really helped.”

“Good for you.”

Daitaro pointed down at the coin on the bar. “I got my thirty-day chip yesterday, but I don’t recognise that one.”

“You don’t take a hint, do you?”

The barman was still undeterred by Milton’s attitude. “How long have you got?”

“Eight years.”

Daitaro nodded his head appreciatively. “Amazing.”

“I thought so,” Milton said. “But it turns out I was just postponing the inevitable.”

“How’s that?”

“What is this—an intervention?”

“It’s good to share. That’s what they say.”

“That’s what they say,” Milton repeated with a weary sigh. “Fine. I drink to forget.”

“Forget what?”

“What else is there? The things I’ve done. I had the idea that if I followed the Steps, tried to make up for everything, then I’d be able to live with myself. With my memories. But it’s not true. I don’t want to be the one to break it to you, friend, but the stuff they sell us—it’s a crock of shit.”

“And yet you’ve been sober for eight years. What’s changed?”

Milton drew back his lips, feeling his teeth against them. “There was someone I knew who needed my help. She was in a mess—a real mess—and I said I’d come here to help her clear it all up.”

“Grandiosity, then? Thinking we know better. That we can always fix things. We’re told to look out for that, aren’t we?”

“They tell us a lot of things.”

“But you thought you were the one who could fix it all for her?”