A year ago, Timothy would have adjusted his chair to sit in line with the coffee table, directly facing Charles, perhaps over a chess set or a few stacks of plastic poker chips from the set he received one birthday. Neither man would have finished quite so much whisky by now, or found the fire burning dimly in the grate so engrossing.

Evening had come on fast, and Timothy wondered whether Charles had ever intended to leave at all. With the icy roads risky enough even in daylight, it was becoming silently but blatantly obvious to both men that they were fast approaching a turning point they could never have imagined reaching this time last year.

“So what are you going to do Tim?”

Charles posed the question gently, as if it could have been about his friend’s business, or plans for the weekend, but the regret in his desperately tight grip on his spirit glass, and the way the dying flames reflected flickeringly in his eyes gave him away.

“Live, Charlie. Learn and lie and live.”