Four hours and uncountable miles later, Brian sat staring into the depths of his phone, wondering how he’d become so stupendously lucky.

It had all gone on badly enough at first. Exactly as he’d expected.

The drive was horrible. He’d never gone south of Thirsk that he could remember. That is to say, he’d been to York many times but he’d already been staggeringly sozzled by the time the coach got within twenty miles of the first pub (they always went after breakfast so no-one mistook them for alcoholics.) However, he had looked at a map once and he was pretty sure none of the places he went through had been mentioned. Past the Old Riding welcome sign, things got weird. There was a woman with a colander for a hat in Little Rimsworth, and that’s all Brian wanted to recall.

After that, it took a fucking long time to drive what the sat-nav said was only three miles to the northern suburbs of Raughnen. The sat-nav also said he should have been pulling in to the by-all-accounts-normal village of Easingwold, so he had to admit that Jim might have been right to say they didn’t know everything that time he took a left fork into a field of rapeseed.

Raughnen wasn’t Easingwold. Though he could see a comforting, homely smog hanging over the drab bricks of the town centre, here he had only seen posh twats in robes and pointy hats. Here, they were even posher and twattier than that other posh and twatty place. At least, that’s what he thought all that silly clothing meant, because there wasn’t a university or vegan self-sustaining commune in sight.

There were also a hell of a lot of churches about. Brian didn’t like that. If there was a God, he’d decided long ago, then He’d have got him with a bit of lightning by now. He was safe on that front. It was the congregation he had to worry about. Some of them didn’t like it when the lads put traffic cones on Joseph’s marble head on a Saturday night. And there he was thinking the Bible was all about not judging.

Well, he’d judged Raughnen. He continued to judge when it took the young lad three attempts to tug him through the cruelly tiny gap in the hedge around the big old Victorian terrace they’d pulled up by. He knew they’d be judging him for the couple of stone he’d put on recently. It’d been a stressful couple of days at work.

Inside, there were a load of old men in red smoking jackets, who cooed and roared with laughter and shook Brian’s hand when he squeezed past the plants in the passage. The living room smelled of musty carpet and death. They gathered round him in a desert of wrinkles, peering into his chins and pawing at his spare tyres.

“Feared Father... it is you!” they crowed. The crow thing didn’t stop at that. They flapped about like a pack of birds too, puffing up ancient cushions, spreading wings of granddad skin, pattering about lighting bronze bowls of incense which glowed green and fizzed out smoke that reminded Brian of the rotten watermelon on the side he kept meaning to get rid of before its gooey, ever-expanding tendrils reached the lino.

“I’m not anyone’s feared father,” Brian blustered. He looked round, jaw working, flabbergasted at the quiet, old-people commotion as the room was made bearable. It didn’t look like anyone had been in here for years. Looking at that flowery wallpaper, he could see why too. “I mean, I did coach my nephew’s under-eights team before the cup last year. I think they said something about me being feared in the paper after that. But I didn’t mean to call them worthless lazy scum with zero potential who should never’ve been born. I just got carried away - it’s footy, right? And I never used the word ‘stupid’. You know what the papers are like...”

“That’s his voice, see?” the youth whispered from his place of safety by an Ottoman decorated with pig’s heads. “I would know.”

“And we do too,” one of the men cawed. “He was ambushed on the High Street three years back, by forces unknown. He’s suffered some curse, to be sure, something that’s rewritten his life and made him forget who he really is. But we’ll take care of him. You’ve done well, child. Tell your Aunt Gertrude we’ll pay the milkman next Tuesday.”

Brian sucked in a billow of putrid smoke and gazed about him incredulously. The balding heads of the gathered throng looked like a giant basket of eggs through the murk. Rotten eggs. “Look, I’m sorry to have bothered you. I never should have come down-”

“And he’ll want to send his own token of appreciation once he’s better,” the man continued to the lad, with the deafness and/or blunt ignorance of the certified Old Fart.

“Yes, let’s get started right away,” a short, wiry geezer interjected from a creaking armchair by the window. At least, Brian hoped it was the chair that was creaking. Otherwise he might appreciate a stronger essence of watermelon vinegar any moment now. “We’ll try jogging his memory first. Bring the Feared Father’s golden regalia, the Pointer of Shutting the Fuck Up, the Case of Eternal Beer, and the Attractant of Dirty Lasses.”

“At once, Honoured Grandmaster,” replied a gent who was bowing as much as his back brace allowed. He turned to what Brian assumed was a slightly sprightlier member of the group, judging by a couple of dark hairs in his beard. “And bring his Bentley round from the mansion.”

Brian had stopped staring at the door.

“You know what,” he managed after a few false starts. “I might be starting to remember summat. Is this seat mine too?”