Did he imagine her half-smile? Or the way her eyes lingered on him? He had tried not to watch her swimming. Had torn his eyes off her body when she floated in the black water. Didn’t want to be a creep.

But how exquisite she is. Out of his league. Forbidden fruit from a world of red braces, striped suits and Swiss bank accounts. He’s seen them on the news, those educated men in cavernous rooms filled with screens and rolling numbers, red sports cars parked outside London mansion blocks, portable phones like bricks.

Not his world.

Not his world of broken men with blackened lungs, who scream in pain and carry bloodied handkerchiefs. Bent backs. Fingers so ingrained with grime that years would never see them clean. His world is one of rusted boats and silent engine rooms and men who spend their days in betting shops or the pub or at home, staring at the wall, waiting for a job.

Any fucking job.

He thinks of his father. Imagines him looking down from wherever he is. His dad. The lion-heart. The hero. Honoured with a brass plaque. A town in mourning. The sad talk of pubs and shops and dinner tables. Robert Tresize. Courage of a hundred men. Heart of an angel.

And his son? A waste of fucking space.

You? You’re Rob’s son? Are you sure?

The sceptical strangers are right. How can they be father and son? So different. On and on go the whispers behind his back. On and on. Speaking their truths.

Why would a girl like her look at someone like him?

His grandfather hacks as he reaches for a piece of jigsaw. He tries it for size, but it doesn’t fit, so he replaces it back with the others.

‘What are we… having for tea?’ he says. ‘Did she… tell you?’

‘Fish,’ Jago says, ignoring his grandfather’s rasping. ‘Gareth gave her a couple of bits of haddock.’

Gareth. The prick. Trying to buy them with fillets of fish.

Granfer grins. ‘Love a… bit of haddock.’

Cough, cough, hack.

Jago doesn’t move until the wheezing calms, just sits and stares at the jigsaw.

‘How was…’ Cough. Hack. ‘The fence painting?’

‘Easy enough.’

‘Your mum’ll be… pleased.’

Jago nods.

‘Shame your dad isn’t… here.’

He nods again.

‘He was a good man, that one. Clever, too. Different from… the likes of me and… you.’

He watches as Granfer’s eyes mist over with tears for his dead son.

His mother calls up to them.

‘Tea’s ready,’ Jago says and places the homeless bit of jigsaw back on the table.

‘Lovely,’ the old man says, licking his lips. ‘Nice bit of haddock.’

‘Hi, love.’ His mum smiles as he walks into the kitchen.

‘Granfer’s on his way down.’

Jago opens the fridge.