Like plenty of light smokers, he’d deluded himself by thinking he could kick any time he chose. They are the smokers the tobacco companies like best. What they do not like us to see are the poor ravaged faces of people like snooker ace Hurricane Higgins — gaunt, fucked and forlorn — peering out from the tabloids. The real maintenance comes with the guy who thinks he’s not hooked. Smoking ULTRA LIGHTS and thinking the roof will never fall in.

It falls.

Porter didn’t really think he could ask for ten minutes to nip out for a fast drag. Next up was x-ray… And the technician tut-tutted… ‘This you do not want to hear.’

So Porter asked:

‘What? You see something on there?’

‘Not my job, mate. I just take the snaps, let the big boys deliver the damage.’

‘So you do see something? Oh Jesus, tell me. I can take it.’

And he remembered Burt Reynolds in The End saying exactly the same thing, then, when he’d heard the worst, howling like a baby. The technician, putting the x-ray in a huge envelope, said:

‘The porter will wheel you back.’

Porter Nash grabbed his wrist, said:

‘The porter? I’m Porter, tell me the news. I’m a cop, did you know that and believe me, I can give you shit till Sunday if I want.’

The technician looked around, then whispered:

‘Do you smoke?’

Oh God, it was true. The dreaded messenger was banging on the gates. Porter felt the air go out of whatever remained of his black lungs and the guy said:

‘Reason I ask is, you can slide in the back there, grab a drag and I’ll keep the door closed.’

PorterNash wanted to giggle, he felt hysteria rising. Smoking his cigarette and trying to get his mind in gear, he focused on a poem by Jack Mulveen he’d memorised one quiet afternoon. How the hell did it go? The title was ‘The Coffin Maker’s House’.