The joint was passed around and then inevitably came to me. I’d had one toke before now, just the one. It had made me feel sick and I hadn’t liked it at all.

But my head was messed up from what had happened today, and I wanted to forget. Maybe this would help me do that. So, I took a drag like a pro, proud that I didn’t choke on it. Jason clapped me on the back and said, ‘That’s the fucking way, Willy Wonka.’

I had one more swig from the bottle and then it was gone, to much swearing and discussion about who had cash. And that was when I reached into my pocket and produced the notes that suddenly seemed meant to be. I held them out to Jason and said, ‘I’ve got this. You can have it if you like.’

Kieran had hooted with laughter and said, ‘Fuck me,’ as Jason reached out and took the money from my hands.

It had taken me half an hour to walk to my old estate but, lost in toxic memory, I hadn’t been paying much attention to my surroundings. A homing pigeon muscle memory had sent me the right way, taking a wrong turning only once, and now I found myself standing opposite the estate and gazing across at a small group of kids playing football outside.

A woman in a burqa pushing a smiling, chatty toddler in a buggy passed me, peering through the mesh grille over her face.

I leaned against the wall behind me and, for the first time in a few years, I could feel my fingers twitching for a cigarette. I’d stopped when I met Anya because all it had taken was the thought of one tiny wrinkle of her nose at my breath for the urge to miraculously pass.

Morningside House looked exactly the same, but the white paint on the windows might have been spruced up in recent times. I couldn’t see my old flat from this spot; I’d have had to go into the quadrant to do so. This was close enough. Washing hung outside one of the flats on the walkway; grey limp garments dangled limply, looking like solid masses, as though they had been drying since I was last here, despite a breeze that was whipping up now. An old woman, as round as she was tall, with a weathered Mediterranean face and a black scarf around her hair, was leaning on a balcony and gazing out, but didn’t seem aware of my presence. Maybe she was seeing an azure sea and olive groves instead of this concrete wasteland.