‘Please don’t sack me,’ he wanted to say. ‘I can do better. You have to understand that I am not incompetent, or gross – I just need a little time. We all need a little time, don’t we? My mother’s dead.’

Of course, if he’d said that she would have said, ‘In fairness, you’ve had quite a lot of time. You’ve had years, Michael, and I’m sorry about your mother.’

‘She’s just died. I’m an orphan.’

‘You’re a what?’

‘My father’s dead, too. A while ago – so that means I’m an orphan, and the world is so… unforgiving.’

‘You’re a grown man, Michael.’

‘That’s what I’m not, Joan – and I know I’ve had time off but I didn’t realise what was happening to me. Aren’t you just a tiny bit responsible for my welfare, as my employer? You see, I think I’m ill.’

‘Go to a doctor, then.’

‘About what? About how long I find myself sitting in the office doing nothing, being grossly incompetent? What can a doctor say?’

He had taken time off, of course he had – but those who are ill often put a lot of work into pretending they’re not. Looking back, he hadn’t simply been poorly, or overworked. He had been… terminally distracted – and this was all before he met Amy, and got other strange, sad jobs. He couldn’t blame Joan or Jean or anyone else, least of all his mother. He’d been distracted, as he was distracted now because the woman opposite had a bag of sweets and suddenly he wanted to know what they were. They were in an old-fashioned paper bag, as if they had gone back in time together to the 1970s when things came in bags, having been weighed out on scales. The newspaper shop where he bought his selection was owned by a man called Mr Moorhouse: Moorhouse was the name above the door, and it sold sweets, magazines, and a few books and toys.