I finally found Trev playing darts in the Volunteer. Usually you can tell which pub Trev’s in because you can hear him whooping and roaring, or even crowing like a cockerel, from halfway down the high street. But tonight he was planting his arrows calmly, modestly and considerately, without all the usual alarums and excursions. I hadn’t seen him for several months and I wondered whether, at 48 years old, he was finally beginning to feel his age.
I bought a pint and took it over to the dartboard. Trev saw me coming and bowed low, as though I were a visiting dignitary. With his face to the floor he pointed a forefinger at the top of his head. ‘See that!’ he said. Through thinning short hair I could make out a scab the size and shape of a 10-pence piece. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘What happened?’
His story, interrupted by turns at the dartboard, went like this.
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