‘Because I’ve got to get away from you, and the one thing I really need is more whisky,’ Alfie muttered under his breath. He felt like a schoolboy again, being forced to take the hand-knitted gloves he’d hated so much. He hadn’t worn them back then – he’d always just shoved them in his pockets the moment he’d rounded the corner out of her sight – and he wasn’t going to wear them now. He’d had enough; he’d reached his limit. If he didn’t get away soon his head would burst, with all the furious thoughts that were swirling around it.

The shock of the outside air made him gasp, but he gulped it in, relishing the freshness of it, after so long being cooped up in the small terraced house, with its constant smell of cooked cabbage and damp walls. He turned his face up to the sky. It was grey and it would probably rain but he didn’t care. He was free again. It was all he could do not to shout out loud.

He knew he should go down to the docks and see his boss, explain he was on the mend and would soon be back at work. He needed to start earning again, for a start. His feet decided otherwise, heading in the opposite direction, as if he had no choice in the matter. He moved along in a direct line as if driven by a secret mission. After a while he arrived at the nondescript pub to which he’d taken Tommy all those months ago. The sign still swung in the breeze, but now the new paint could be distinguished on it: a bright figure and the words, The King’s Head. Alfie glared at it, squinting upwards. The king hadn’t done much for him, he thought angrily. Still, it was a pub, and one he hadn’t yet been banned from, so it would do as well as any other. He was gasping for the taste of proper beer.

If he’d hoped for any kind of welcome, any comments that he hadn’t been seen in there for a while and he’d been missed, he was doomed to disappointment. The morose barman simply grunted at him and pulled the pint without comment, setting it down silently and holding out his hand for money. Alfie didn’t care. He wasn’t at home, his mother wasn’t going to fill his head with information he didn’t want, and he had a decent pint of bitter before him.