You'd have thought Sporting had lifted the European Cup by the noise the crowd made. There was nothing to be done. Grace was imperative. Fifteen minutes later I looked like that rare thing-a Portuguese badger.

I was pretty well passed overhead to the bar A Bandeira Vermelha which was run by an old friend, Antonio Borrego, who billed himself as the last communist in Portugal. The bank director was pressed in there with me, along with my daughter and the rest of my family and even the mayor found his way to my side with the microphone still in his top pocket.

Antonio assembled the beers in glass-frosted ranks. He was a man who needed a meal, a lifetime of meals. The sort who couldn't put on weight if you sat a pig in his lap. He had a concave, white, hairy chest, eyes sunken deep into his head and untrained eyebrows off the leash. His forearms were as wiry and covered in hair as a monkey's and he had a past I didn't know the half of.

Olivia, the fat man and myself took a beer each. Antonio had his Polaroid out to record the event for his wall of bacchanalia.

'I wouldn't know you any more,' he said to me. 'I need a reference.'

I raised my glass. Tears rolled down the side. The emotional beer.

'With my first drink for 172 days,' I said, 'I propose a toast to the health and generosity of Senhor Miguel da Costa Rodrigues of the Banco de Oceano e Rocha.'

Olivia told me how she knew the banker. She was at school with his daughter and cut clothes for her mother. He was wearing one of her ties. He'd even offered to set her up in the fashion business. I told him I wanted her to finish her education. An expensive international school in Carcavelos paid for by her English grandparents who didn't want a granddaughter who couldn't speak their language. The banker sighed at a missed opportunity. Olivia sulked for show. We all had parts to play.