Despite the pub being up an unlit single-track road, it was busy, and humid with smoke and sweat. There was a HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY banner slung lopsidedly on one wall, and much of the room was taken up with men in shirts and blazers and women with heavy make-up. Bryan Adams was blaring out from a jukebox. ‘Summer of ’69’.

Winter of ’99. Matty needed warmth. There was a cold coming, a scratchiness in the throat that wasn’t solved by drink, as two beers had testified. None of the beers had made any of the anger subside. Nor the steak and kidney pie, which combined with the beers and the Vietnamese takeaway would add half a pound, maybe more. Probably would have to skip breakfast to make up for it, and lunch, and have Slim-Fast for dinner. Twice as many press-ups and squat-lunges.

Fuck him. Fuck him fuck him fuck him.

Matty had driven in circles. Driven to more loughs, only to stare at them before reversing back up the track. Thought of London, wanted to be there, except that the box room was occupied at the moment. Wanted to be in the Canadian camp where there’d be a cute pony-trekking instructor who liked Matty to go down on her when she had her period, who used climbing ropes unexpectedly, causing them both to be in fits of giggles as they came. Wanted to – there was nowhere else. Nowhere was home.

Should have just phoned. None of this grand quest bollocks. Should have had the guts to ring the numbers and hear strangers’ voices, like Heather had said.

He could be anywhere.

Queen were on the jukebox now, a couple of girls holding centre stage, singing Find. Me. Somebody to love with some stop-start actions. The guys watching them were grinning, one dropping his wrist as he mouthed the words and pouted grotesquely.

Matty remembered the tabloid headlines when Freddie Mercury died. AIDS KILLED THE KING OF ROCK. Remembered the adverts on TV before that, the weird clanging music and the violent engraving of the word into stone. Remembered the grass bank outside the Men’s Pond, the sadness just under the surface.

Daz had been there, on and off, each summer. At the turn of the last decade, Matty had gone over to buy a can of Pepsi.

‘Wotcha sport, long time no see,’ Daz had said. Paint-spattered jeans and no top. He looked thinner. ‘Been hanging round with the ladies, have you?’

‘Mixed, mostly.’

‘Very sensible, very sensible. That’s fifty pee.’

‘Gone up?’

‘Moving with the times, mate. Going to be a proper yuppie, me. Loadsamoney.’

‘How is everyone? Been ages.’

‘Oh, you know, dropping like flies.’ A weak grin, just an old hint of the devil in him, before he looked up the hill. ‘Gegsy’s gone.’