For the first month I just got accustomed to the place, and some evenings I would join the Whartons in their living room. They sat in velour-upholstered armchairs on either side of the giant, wide-screen television. They liked the television to operate at a reassuringly loud volume, spouting out jingles and soap operas like some oblong, idiotic god. If discussion became necessary, they never turned the television down: they turned their conversation up. There were times when between the jabbering of the television, the heckling of the Whartons, the wheezing of Rollo and the thrum of the cars outside their door, I thought my head would split.

If an advertisement came on which featured an egg sizzling in a pan, or a couple of bacon rashers spitting under a grill, Mr Wharton would dash me a stagily conspiratorial look and shout across a roguish reference to Belfast delicacies, unavailable in London: ‘I bet you could handle that between a couple of bits of soda bread, eh? And a big bit of plum duff on the side?’

I would push my face into an expression of pleasurably tortured yearning, and sigh: ‘Oh aye I would, Mr Wharton. I really would.’

A visitor’s voice rang out in the Whartons’ kitchen – ‘So when I came back from a month away in Spain, I found that my flat had been burned down, along with everything in it. Video, TV, curtains, carpets, all destroyed. And six-hundred quid’s worth of clobber, that I bought before I went – all off the back of a lorry, like – jackets, shirts, trousers, you name it. All burnt to a facking crisp. All I had left was the clothes in my suitcase, and what I was standing up in.’

Harry Smiley – balding native of London town, minicab driver and friend of Mr Wharton’s – took a contemplative slug of beer from a can and screwed up his knowing eyes in squinting recognition of the caprice of fate. Mrs Wharton leaned forward in her chair, drawing heavily on her John Player Special, and asked urgently, ‘Did you get it back off the insurance?’

‘No. My insurance had expired two weeks before, and I hadn’t even realised to renew it. It cost me fifteen grand.’ He paused, aware of the dramatic power of his bad luck.

Mrs Wharton gaped for a moment. ‘How did the fire start?’ she said.

Harry took another swig before answering: ‘It was the old geezer that lived upstairs. He came back pissed from the pub one night, got into bed, lit up a cigarette and fell asleep. Next thing the whole place was burned to a bleeding cinder, his flat and mine.