The travel was exhausting, he said. You got sick of hotel bars and room service. And some of these directors were total pricks. ‘Fucking children throwing tantrums,’ he mumbled, swirling the dregs of his glass.

Mark had believed him, but only up to a point. And besides, while Andrew may have to deal with the odd prima donna, Mark was at home with actual children throwing actual tantrums. It was worse now that they were getting older. Two teenage girls with their fluctuating moods, their maelstroms of hormones. Spots and tears and slamming doors. Broken friendships and exam stress. Their endless needs, requests, demands, with no hotel bar to retreat to at the end of the day. And now there was going to be a third girl – this French exchange student of Beth’s – adding to the hormonal swamp. He’d said as much last night, griping a little in a self-pitying way, and that’s when Andrew had sat up and put his hand on Mark’s shoulder, a new seriousness coming into his voice, his demeanour.

‘Come and work with me,’ he’d said.

‘Yeah, right,’ Mark had snorted, nodding to the barman. He’d lost track of whose round it was.

‘I’m serious, man. Look, there’s a shoot coming up in September – a major production. We’re talking Canal Plus and FilmFour. Locations in Prague, Italy, London.’ Andrew rapped the table with his knuckles, biting his lower lip in a way that was familiar to Mark and signalled his determination. ‘I’m sending you the brief. And the script. Think about it, yeah?’

At the time, he had allowed himself to get caught up in imagining what it would be like to work on a major project again, an old excitement stirring to life inside him. Now, as Mark lay on the couch, the codeine crawling into his cells, he thought again about the offer, wondered had Andrew really meant it, and even if he was serious, would Mark be able to make things work?