He worked hard and long, getting up early and going to bed late, and filling every minute in between with toil, until one day he had everything he wanted. He had a house with enough rooms and some left over. He had a wife he loved and was faithful to. He had a child who laughed and grew and thrived.

Every day, the man looked at his house and his wife and his child as they laughed in the sunshine and he thought, I worked hard for all of this. Everything I have now is the result of my own hard work. And because I earned it, no-one can take it away from me.

The sun looked down at the man, and it smiled kindly and left him to his delusions, because it knew men were foolish and had no idea how cruel the world could be. But the moon peeked in through a window and saw his beautiful wife sleeping, and it thought, This man needs to learn.

The man’s wife became sick. The man thought, If I work hard, I can make her well. He spent all his time and all his money, and he worked from dawn ’till dusk and then from dusk ’till dawn. But all his hard work was for nothing, because he couldn’t make his wife well.

When his wife died, the man thought his heart would break. So his took his heart out of his chest, locked it in a casket and hid the casket underneath his pillow. Then he took his daughter and ran away to live in a distant land, far away from all the things he had ever wanted. And he thought, If I never want anything again, nothing else bad can ever happen to me.

But the man had not thrown his heart away. He had not forgotten how to want. He had not yet learned his lesson.

Chapter Fifteen : Now

When Donald opened up, George was hanging around the doorway. George came into the pub without acknowledging Donald, and made straight for the bar. Once there, he leaned against the woodwork and waited.

“What can I get you, George?”

“A bottle of Heineken and a packet of pork scratchings, please,” said George, as he always did, and when Donald handed them over he went to his usual table and sat on his usual stool. He tore down the seam and laid the bag out in a neat flat sheet, then began to eat. Donald had to smile.

“You got much on, then?” he asked, inspecting glasses. One wore a faint print of pink lipstick. Alicia almost always wore make-up these days. He couldn’t remember when that had begun. Ava – no, he wasn’t going to think about her. It was a nice day. He wouldn’t waste it being angry. He took the glass out and gave it a wipe.

“Oh, yes. I had a big rebuild job to do, if you remember. That was entertaining.” George laughed. “Flakes of paint everywhere, it made a right mess. They’ll have to repaint the whole thing.”