Dad?” He didn’t respond at first, thinking the voice was only an echo from his past.

In these last few months, his mind had been a cruel joker, giving strangers his son’s face as he shuffled through the streets. On one day, no less than twenty of the university town’s students had been his son for the briefest moment, before transmuting back into just another fresh-faced stranger. All had looked at him in the same way though; a moment of barely disguised disgust, then pity, then crossing over to the other side of the street.

“Dad? Oh my God – Dad!”

A body stepped between him and the fire burning in the oil barrel. He blinked at the young man, his eyes unable to pick out his features in the darkness after staring at orange flames for hours. He waited for the inevitable moment when the man would realise his mistake, and mutter an apology, but seconds ticked by without anything.

“It’s me, Dad – Joe!”

The sludge that had gathered around his thoughts drained away. Joe!

He tried to speak but the coughing and the tears got in the way. The other bits of human driftwood sharing the fire looked on, too cold or drunk to comment on the reunion, as David crumpled into his son’s arms.

David woke on something so soft, a childish part of him wondered if he had died, and was floating to heaven on a cloud. When he opened his eyes, he saw a light above him, set into an ornate ceiling rose. It was the first clue he hadn’t died.

The second was he hurt all over, and his body was shivering. He opened his mouth to speak. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth with a taste so awful he could believe a mouse had crawled in there and died overnight.

There was a chink of china, the bright ringing of a spoon stirring in a cup, and then the most beautiful aroma of strong coffee. He turned his head to see his son carrying a steaming cup towards him from a trolley laden with a royal breakfast.

“You need to eat, but drink this first,” Joe said, helping him to sit up. “Then we’ll get you cleaned up. I had to cut those shoes off you.” He wrinkled his nose as he reported it, pointing to a tied polythene bag in the corner.

David held the cup in quivering hands, his fingers clumsy as they held the fine china. “Where are…?”

“In the Hilton, sorry. It’s the best in the area. There isn’t much choice here.”

“Sorry …” David’s voice cracked and he sipped the coffee to lubricate his throat.

Joe looked embarrassed. “Croissant?”

David nodded, coming back into his body more and more as the caffeine raced through his veins.

The room was large, decorated in the calm banality of hotel beige. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a bedroom, but an old part of his mind began silently criticising the lack of a view, and the fact that one of the dressing table legs was chipped. He saw a door through to the en-suite bathroom.

“Is there a bath?”

Joe returned with the croissant. “Want me to run one?”

David nodded, sinking his teeth into the soft pastry. Never before, in the history of mankind, had there been such a delicious croissant.

The bathroom was filthy when they finished, the sink covered in tangled brown hair and shorn beard. It had taken two bathtubs of water and a final shower to get David clean, and now he was sitting on the bed, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, sipping another coffee. He could think straight again.

Joe was staring at him from one of the executive armchairs, always less comfortable than they look. David knew why he stared.

“I look different, don’t I?”

His son nodded. “You look older.”

“Thanks.”

They sat in silence. He wanted to ask a thousand questions, but all of them seemed like neon signs pointing to his dreadful failure to be a good father.

“I graduated magna cum laude,” Joe ended the dilemma for him, the news laced with a squeeze of bitterness. “I’m due to start with the Firm next month.” David nodded, remembering the way his wife’s family talked about life in politics. “And Sophie?”

“She’s fine, she could get her doctorate in her sleep.” There was a long pause. “Mom’s ok too.”

David looked down into the black coffee. “This needs more sugar,” he said, handing it over. He watched Joe sigh and take it back to the trolley. “Did she send you?”

Joe dumped the spoon in the cup. “You disappeared!” he exclaimed. “I was worried. This has nothing to do with Mom.”