The bathroom had a shower cubicle, laughably called a ‘suite’ in the advert he had answered. It had long since been taken over by a black, mouldy damp-type substance Garry was in no rush to have a fight with. If that wasn’t bad enough, the toilet had a cracked seat and there was no sink in the bathroom; he had to use the one in the kitchen.

Although he knew it was awful, it was cheap and placed perfectly for his needs. It was very close to the centre of Manchester towards the back of the Oldham Street area, above a shop. Or, as one of his less-eloquent friends put it, ‘Where all those artsy pricks live’. Its location meant he could walk to work and manage to get to all the bars on his doorstep without too many problems. Even if he did need a taxi home every now and then, it didn’t cost too much.

Garry ran his hands through his thick black straggly shoulder-length hair. There had been a time when he thought longish hair would give him a rock-star look all the girls would go for. All these years down the line and that thinking had definitely gone out of the window but he still couldn’t be bothered to get it cut.

He looked at the scene in front of him and thought that, even though his choice of home wasn’t that appealing, he probably wasn’t helping himself. Clothes were strewn over most of the free floor space, while the sink that was supposed to act as somewhere to prepare food, clean dishes and wash his hands, was overflowing with a mix of pots, pans, cups, plates and a folded-up pizza box.

‘Right,’ he said out loud to the empty room. ‘Let’s get this mutha sorted.’

It wasn’t the type of thing he would have said if anyone else was present.

Garry was fairly slim and unimposing with his hair his most striking feature. His pasty frame was covered only by a pair of blue boxer shorts he had worn the whole of the previous day then slept in overnight. He put on some music to play through his phone, the rock tracks blending into one and sounding tinny through the device’s underwhelming speaker. Garry could hear them well enough and, safe in the knowledge he was on his own, he sang along to the words he knew, made up the ones he didn’t, played a bit of air-guitar and danced around in a way he never would on a night out.

Slowly but surely the scuffed wooden floor began to become visible. Clothes were shoved into the oversized chest of drawers or dropped in a giant supermarket carrier bag he had kept so he could do his own laundry.

As he was finishing, the playlist of songs he had set up on his phone came to an end and the room went quiet. Not knowing what to do with the rest of the day, Garry folded his bed back into the sofa and flicked on the TV. The indoor aerial was, as usual, not giving much of a signal into the cheap digital box he had hooked up. He fumbled around with it but the television just kept spewing out a hum of dissatisfaction. Annoyed, he turned it off and picked his phone up, skimming through his contacts until he got to a certain name.

Mark Llewellyn was one of the quieter people he knew and, although Garry fancied a drink and a chat, he didn’t really want to spend the rest of the day in the pub. He dialled the number and, after a brief conversation, the pair arranged to meet at his local in half an hour.

It dawned on him that spending his Saturday afternoons in the pub was hardly embracing life but he didn’t have much else better to do.

Garry had already drunk a third of his pint when Mark slid into the booth opposite him, plonking a full glass of beer on the table between them. The pub was only two minutes’ walk from Garry’s flat and usually full of locals. Because it was away from the main street, the tourists didn’t really see it, although most would have opted for a significantly posher bar anyway. It was a mile or so away from the student district and, whenever he went for a drink, Garry was convinced he was the youngest person there.

‘You all right, mate?’ Mark asked.

‘Not too bad, just work and that.’ Garry’s tone clearly gave his mood away.

Mark had picked up his drink but put it back down to avoid spilling it as he laughed. ‘Blimey, it can’t be that bad? Want to talk about it?’

‘Maybe. It’s a bit girly, isn’t it?’

Mark looked at him and laughed again. ‘What, talking? You really have got problems.’

Garry knew Mark through a mutual friend but, because they lived in close proximity to each other, they often went for a quiet drink together. They shared quite a bit in common but Mark earned a very good salary, which was a little intimidating. Garry pushed his hair behind his ears and took another mouthful from his drink.

‘You just think things are going to be better than this, don’t you?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, I always wanted to be a journalist. You watch all these programmes and read the papers and everyone seems to be doing something worthwhile. I wanted to be a travel writer. From what I thought, you’d just be sent off to explore the world and get to stay in all these plush hotels and flirt with the exotic barmaids. You’d send through a few hundred words then move on to the next place.’

‘I don’t think most jobs are like that,’ his friend laughed.

‘I know but I want to do things like go to the football and interview the players and so on. As it is, I can’t even get into movies for free.’

‘Why should you be able to?’

‘Well, someone’s got to review these things.’

‘Not you though?’

‘No chance.’

‘So what do you do? I thought you at least got to interview some famous people?’

‘Sort of. You remember that reality TV girl who slept with that guy? You know that presenter bloke? It was all over the news.’

Mark looked blankly at him and shook his head. ‘That’s not the most accurate portrayal of someone I’ve ever heard.’

‘Well, I don’t know their names.’

‘Neither do I from that description.’

‘Whatever,’ Garry said shaking his head. ‘Anyway, I went to interview her. She had a book she was supposed to be promoting but talked in one- and two-word answers. If that’s how she spoke then God knows how bad the writing was. Aside from her own fingernails, she wasn’t interested in anything. After fifteen minutes of not answering questions, she was whisked off to some other appointment by her PA.’

‘Was she hot though?’

Garry smiled. ‘In a glowing orange radioactive-type way.’

‘You’re too picky.’

‘I wish I had the opportunity to be fussy.’

Mark finished another mouthful of his drink then laughed again.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Garry continued. ‘Most of the time I get stuck talking to councillors about all sorts of nonsense.’

‘That does sound pretty boring. What’s the name of your paper again?’

‘The Manchester Morning Herald. I’ve worked there for eighteen months now. How many front-page stories do you reckon I’ve had in that time?’

‘I have no idea. I don’t really look at papers to be honest. Twenty?’

‘Two – and both of them were about how often people’s bins get emptied.’

‘Ooh, big-time.’

It was Garry’s turn to laugh. ‘I know but it’s mad out there. People will put up with most things: gangs on the streets, giant pot holes in their roads, rising crime rates, you name it. But stop emptying their bins every week and it all kicks off.’

‘Funnily enough, my dad was moaning about his bins over the phone the other week.’

Garry flailed his arms around and banged his pint on the table as if to emphasise the point. ‘See what I mean? It’s crazy and these are the people I’m out talking to every day.’

‘Go on then, tell me about your worst encounter.’

After a drink to calm himself, Garry continued. ‘Do you remember how freezing it was last winter with all the snow and everything? On the coldest day for six years, I got sent out onto the streets to ask people their views on local government.’