He hadn’t turned up for work a few days before leaving the coffee shop in eerie darkness for well over two hours after its usual opening hours. Everyone was worried. He isn’t picking up, said the manager when we eventually got in at 9.45. He’d overslept. He turned up with his tail between his legs later that morning, she told us the next day. Bless him. He’s a tiny scrap of a thing, with pale skin and a long forelock of a fringe of red hair. He told me it was his birthday. He’s twenty-six. I asked him what he did. Me mum came over, he said, and we had fish and chips. It was nice, he said. Then I had some vodka and fell asleep until 1.
