The surfers bought bags and bags of crisps with their bottles of beer, and ordered chicken curries with rice and chips, burgers and chips, a vegetarian omelette with chips and salad, and two more bowls of chips for the table, as if the table might be joining in with the meal. The omelette surprised him. He’d imagined it would take a lot of animal protein to build six foot one of brawny manhood. Perhaps the lad fancied a change. Perhaps he was temporarily turning vegetarian to impress some girl called Jemima or Pippa or Amanda or Tamara, and when he’d got bored of her he’d go out for a celebratory meat feast with his mates.

Donald had no cook in the off-season, but he’d taught himself to make the simple stuff and the rest came out of the freezer. It wasn’t gourmet dining but it was acceptable and filling. The surfers were laughing in that loud, braying way alpha males had, the kind of laugh that assumed no-one else in the room really counted and it was okay to fill the place with the sound of you being frightfully amusing.

“Two burgers with chips,” he announced, deliberately cutting across their conversation. A smattering of Thanks, mate and Christ I’m starving. He wanted to tell them he wasn’t their mate. He settled instead for bringing only two of the three chicken curries, forcing them to perform the you-have-this-one-no-you-do-no-you ritual, then giving the omelette to the wrong person so they would have to pass overloaded plates across the table. Small satisfactions. Then he stood in the kitchen and thought in horror, Why am I going out of my way to annoy six perfectly nice, well-behaved young lads who are spending money in my establishment?

The answer came in the voice of his old boss Harry. You just need to get laid, my son. He could picture Harry leaning back in his chair with a twinkle in his eye. Want me to set you up?

As if he had time for that. As if he had any interest in that. Jesus. He was in his late forties, not his early teens. He went to collect the empty bottles from the table and to ask them if they’d like another round.

They were talking about someone they’d met on the beach, who must be as hard as nails to go in without a wetsuit, and who had laughed and laughed at the one with the improbable name of Migmog when he tried and spectacularly failed to catch a wave… after some discussion regarding the drive home, they ordered five more beers and a fat Coke. The beers waited, patient and sweating, as the Coke gushed into the glass. Another sign they were nice lads, far nicer than he’d been at their age. He and his mates would have had the extra beer and a couple more on top, piled into the car anyway and assumed they weren’t going to crash. He loaded the tray and carried it to the table.