I stopped then. Not only because I’d exhausted anything intelligent I had in my repertoire, but also because keeping track of all those metaphors and analogies was tiring. But there it was, the Danny Mulberry Manifesto for Life. Or at least a half-page scribbled handbook for not throwing yourself under a Tesco delivery van. It was never destined to be a bestseller, but it had heart, it had a plot, and it had a call to action. What more could you want?

Lou didn’t say anything for a long time and I wondered if I’d blown it. But when she finally spoke, her voice sounded stronger and more certain than I’d heard it before.

‘Danny.’

‘Lou?’

‘Are you really going to try and use a plagiarised mash-up of Monty Python, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and—’ She frowned. ‘Well, I’m really not quite sure what else – to try to convince me life’s worth living?’

Shit, the perils of trying to give advice in real life. I prepared to dig myself out but before I could say anything else, suddenly and brilliantly Lou laughed; a big, bold belly laugh that echoed through my ears like fireworks in the Blackwall Tunnel. Well, look at that, I thought, those Monty Python boys were on to something.

‘OK, OK, you rumbled me, but come on, points for effort, surely? I mean, the Dalai Lama won’t be quaking in his boots or anything just yet, but that wasn’t half bad for a beginner.’ I rolled up on to my knees and wondered if I was always going to find myself at my sister’s feet. ‘But seriously, you’ve got to promise, because I’ll always be here if . . . when you need help. And you have to let me help. Promise me.’

Neither of us was laughing now.

‘I mean it, Lou.’

I could imagine what she was thinking. That I hadn’t been there for the past sixteen years, that I couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to be her, that I had absolutely no idea how it felt to be wading through porridge in jackboots. And maybe I didn’t. But also, maybe I did. I felt a little rush of warm air as she exhaled.

‘OK, Danny.’

‘OK?’

‘OK.’

‘Say it, I need you to say it. What do you promise?’

She laughed again then; that unforgettable laugh that sounded so much like my mother, yet also like nobody else on earth but Lou. It felt like all those years of tension had been sucked out of the room in one go.

‘OK, OK. I promise. I promise I’ll never take anything you say seriously again, especially when you’ve got ten pints of beer inside you and you’ve just buried your father. I promise I’ll never listen when you tell me you wish I’d fuck the fuck off and not fucking come back.’ Shit. I’d forgotten about saying that. Shit.

‘Shit, I—’

‘But most importantly, I promise I’ll never skid myself legs-first into a Tesco van on purpose and write off a perfectly good moped in the process.’ She reached over, grabbed my arm and looked me full in the face. ‘Besides which, as if I’d ever run the risk of leaving you in charge of my one and only daughter, you absolute bloody loser.’