What strikes Dick, other than the fact that his stepson has invited him to this Bristol Rovers match after eighteen months of living together, is just how far Hamish cycles to get to the stadium. Well, not so much the distance as the hills the fourteen-year-old has had to navigate. All Dick was aware of was Hamish setting off to match then returning several hours later, saying not much about the match and nothing about the ride. If Dick is honest with himself, he has completely ignored Hamish’s trips to Rovers’ matches. And that brings Dick on to the second thing that strikes him, now they are standing on the Thatcher’s Terrace at the Memorial Ground. The lad who for all this time has been polite, amenable and unknowable is blazing.

“Watch him, Dick. The one on the ball.”

Dick has no idea who he’s supposed to be watching since they’re twenty-five minutes into the match and he’s never seen a game from ground level before, never had to identify the point of play, never had to interpret control, possession or fouls without a TV pundit telling him where to look and what to think.

“He joined the Reading Academy at nine,” Hamish says, “then was let go at eighteen, but look. See how good he is. Just look at those skills.”

“Amazing,” Dick says, although he’s still not sure which of the players or even which team he’s supposed to be watching.

“They take boys on, promise they’ll be stars, then say nah, and they’ve got no life outside football, and no friends because no one in the academy wants to know them any longer, and exams have been who cares, so what can they do?”

Hamish has returned to darting his attention across the pitch, following some story that Dick has no idea how to understand.

“That’s not right,” Dick tries.

“No,” Hamish says.

Along the terrace an older man is standing with a young girl on his shoulders. His granddaughter maybe. In front of them is a woman with tattoos and a far larger man in a Rovers’ shirt. Young boys, men, women, girls. The Gas hats and blue and white scarves everywhere.

“Fuck you,” the man in front yells.

“Shh,” the woman warns. “Children.”

“Sorry,” he shouts.

Teenagers, five or six of them, cheering goodness knows what, because Dick hasn’t paid attention to the game for a while. From the end of the stand comes a chant of We love you Rovers, we do, We love you Rovers, we do, and opposite someone’s singing about Irene and wishing her good night, from what Dick can make out, because the song is more of a wall of sound than a melody, a wave of bass energy passing through his body and on up the terraces. Hamish too is straining with bellowing. Dick feels obliged to join in with… we do, We love you Rovers… He’s still we-doing when there’s an eruption of noise and movement and Dick is just a molecule in container of sparkling water that has been shaken before opening.

“Didn’t I tell you, Dick,” Hamish is yelling. “I told you. Well fuck you, Reading Academy. Sorry, Dick.”

And in that moment Hamish’s effervescence collapses into a droplet of unremarkable liquid, a blank face, straight back, the boy that Dick recognises but wants to know more about. So he says, “Yeah. Fuck Reading.”

He must have spoken a little too loudly, because the tattooed woman turns with an expression he has to shy away from.

“Sorry,” Dick says and turns to face Hamish’s eeek-taut expression.

A final thing strikes Dick later, when they’re queuing to get out of the car park.

“I’m sorry if I stopped you meeting your friends, Hamish,” he says.

Hamish looks at him, still all two-one-home-win enraptured and replies, “I don’t go with friends,” he says. There’s no reason added, no They support City or They’re rugby or cricket fans.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Dick says.

“Thanks for the half-time burger,” Hamish replies. “I’ve never had one before.”

Dick doesn’t cry often these days. Never in front of his daughter or Hamish, and rarely in front of his wife. But there’s something about a lad who cycles hilly miles to support his football team on his own and who’s never had a father to buy him a half-time burger that makes Dick turn away, hoping to goodness he can spy a gap in the stream of cars.