‘Gotcha. Shush, George. God, Danny, I thought you were never coming home. Given up answering your phone, have you?’

I groped my jeans wondering where my phone actually was, and swayed dangerously. Dom reached forward and patted a bulge in my shirt pocket.

‘It’s there, mate. I . . . Oh my god, mind the . . . Shit, you’re absolutely tanked. You honk of beer, and what in the name of all that’s holy are you wearing?’ I looked down at myself and had to do a nifty little double-step to keep my balance. Dom grabbed my arm.

‘Here, give us that bag and take off that . . . Wait, is that the Clash? OK, well, that’s actually quite cool. But I still think take it off, mate. George, stop hovering and go upstairs and get into your pyjamas.’

Dom relieved me of the soggy, mangled bag of food and held it away from his body as several large drips seeped through the split in the bottom and on to his immaculate timber floor. He didn’t even bat an eyelid. Saint Dom, patron saint of drunks; everybody should have one. George just stood there grinning, because he had absolutely no intention of wasting time putting on pyjamas and risk missing any of the fun and games one of my big nights invariably brought.

‘Listen, Danny, there’s something you . . . Well, you might want to try and sober up a bit.’ Dom put a steadying hand on my arm again. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

I squinted one eye then gave the other a go, trying to focus on Dom’s multiple mouths and concentrate on what they were saying. It sounded important.

‘Eh? What’s that, Domski? Visitor, you say? Who dat?’ I knew from experience most things I say when I’m drunk don’t sound anywhere near as amusing outside my head, but I could usually count on Dom to laugh along. Not this time, Danny old fruit.

‘Someone showed up to see you earlier and she wanted to wait. She kind of wouldn’t take no for an answer, actually.’ The Doms indicated their heads down the hallway. ‘George and I have been . . . Well, George has been doing most of the talking, obviously, but anyhow she’s out there in the kitchen now.’

All I’d wanted was a cup of tea, a cheeky slice of Sara Lee with the boys and then off to my shed bed, but that didn’t look like the way things were going to go down. Instead, if I’d got it right, there was some pushy mystery woman in the next room, quite possibly waiting to take a piece out of me. I suddenly felt a bit queasy.

‘Hey. Come on, you’ll be all right, mate. Couple of deep breaths’ll do you wonders. In and out, let’s go.’ Dom took me by the shoulders and for a few blessed seconds the hallway stopped moving. His hands felt like scaffolding and I got a surge of the feeling I always get around him; ever since the day we met in the queue for an Arctic Monkeys concert in 2009 and all the thousands of days since. Solid, reliable, safe.