We have a deal, but, so you know, I’m never using that toilet’

November, Tuesday, 5pm, and I am racing home from work. I have chipped knuckles and a bursting bladder.

“An uncomfortable, daily occurrence,” I think, as I tear into the kitchen, bound upstairs and rip off my painting overalls in the bathroom, which is what you get when you strike a deal with the devil.

Friday, home, early October, and Paul, the owner of a furniture ‘emporium’ in town, is striking a bargain with me: in exchange for evaluating my furniture — a ten-minute service he’s just rendered with one eye on his fag and the other on his coffee — I am to sand-down, restore and paint four old mirrors for him.