

## What Goes and Comes Around

## Randal Eliot

Published by Literary Fragments

Distributed by Smashwords

Text Copyright ©2014 Randal Eliot

All Rights Reserved

### Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen
Chapter One

'Look here! Your friends might have been born during the last commercial break on Sky ultra-direct debit - and don't laugh! - but I remember my granddad's tales about apples and oranges for Christmas, four-mile treks rain or shine before hard graft underground, and the value of community. And that's the warts and all real world, not the airbrushed, virtual pipedream.'

'Tch, ever heard of progress? I eat five a day and I've a gym membership, silly! And community? That's the beauty of this, Dad. You're always in touch. Ideal if some monster jumps out on a pretty girl like me when I'm walking home at night.'

The big, shiny, innocent eyes that spotted every which way to sell a one-way ticket for a guilt trip. Where did they learn that stuff? God, Disney or the X-factor sympathy vote has a lot to answer for, but, ah, yes. 'You always get a lift when it's dark. So do your friends. And doesn't the phone you've got - and I quote - 'do everything but slice bread with lasers'?'

'Pfft! It's so yesterday it's, like, the invention before the square wheel.'

'I can't buy the idea that something that required the amputation of my arm and leg a few months ago is suddenly good for nothing, lady.'

'Well, the camera...' Snap! Save file. Upload. Post. High definition scowly dad frying his bacon in the inescapable heat of the kitchen and served up on Facebook with a saucy caption, 'He's special because he's getting me a you know what xxx'.

He is?

'Look, Dad, twenty 'likes' already and just read the comments! Everybody thinks you're great! I knew you wouldn't let me down.'

The emotional bribery dressed up as sweet, loving gratitude, ready and raring to lead you on the merriest dance.

'Go on! Read the comments! Everybody's got one!'

The peer pressure willing and able to bully all resistance in its path.

'Mum wants one, too.'

'For Christ's sake, leave your mother out of this! She's enough games of her own!'

'And I make my own rules! They include washing the frying pan and wiping the work tops when you've made something to eat.'

'Oh, hello darling, where did you spring from? I'm just getting our daughter to see reason.'

'And I'm giving you reasonable notice that we're both getting a model. Everyone else...'

Never underestimate the relentless march of the in-crowd.

'Did you say games, Dad? We luv 'em 4eva and we never lose.'

So, they'd seen fit to deploy the pincer movement - thank gawd their third battalion was out sniping at his grandparents.

'The screen they've developed is such quality...'

The who dares wins at any cost sales' spin...

'...you can see the tiniest detail...'

...because what irresistible fantasy has got into the kid's head now?

'...of a rock chick's pad in virtual LA where...' - click, click, click - '...I've got enough credits for a guitar-shaped swimming pool!' Zing! 'Wow! That'll look magic on the new screen!'

What's got into all of our heads?

'Girls, be realistic, you don't need these, and they're more than a pretty penny.'

'That's where you're wrong, Dad. It's got the fastest internet ever. Think how proud you'll be when I pass my exams.'

'Isn't your laptop so advanced it's, like, practically science fiction?'

'With this you can find out everything wherever you are. Biology, physics, chemistry...' And, you stoopid caveman, the really essential stuff such as who's had most number ones? Who starred in? Why did she win an award? Who dated? Who's the worst love rat? Why did she wear that hat? What did drugs do to her? How did she become the new me? Has she had a boob job? Who's the best newcomer? Who's a lifetime genius? Boo the bigmouth judge! Look at his hair transplant! And who wouldn't always score on his wages? But you need the talent, dingbat, so who's hot? Who's not?

'Mum, when are we going to pick them up?'

'What?'

'Our surprises. Dad you're such a silly sausage sometimes.'

'I said no, and that's final.'

'Mum said yes.'

'No.'

'Yes.'

'No.'

'YESSSSSS!'

The raising of hell for the right to shop until you drop.

And now the family might really sink, they had their damn mobiles switched off, which, of course, would only be against the grain if they'd put in another loving request for precious something else that screamed, 'Buy me!' He flung his pay-as-you-go junk at the fashionable black leather sofa with such peevish force it bounced off the firm but spongy seat. Boing! Crashing face down, his phone spun on the polished surface of the recently laid, fake oak floor as if mimicking a wheel of fortune that had been fixed to predict, 'Tough luck, monkey. Have another banana skin!' Glowering, his upper lip twitching, he somehow resisted the temptation to launch the useless thing across the room with a toe-end packed with Arrggh!

One long moment passed before he stooped to pick it up. A familiar tearing sensation in the small of his back caused him to regain his full height with the jerky rigidity of an unoiled, malfunctioning robot. Seized up, he squeezed his eyes tight until the pain eased to a dull ache. And then he saw that his phone's screen had cracked, corner to corner, into an X. Huh, no bloody treasure there! He hastily slotted the gadget into the rear pocket of his washed out Joe Bloggs, so worked up he couldn't bring himself to test it for signs of life. At least the new prize floor didn't betray a tell-tale scratch.

Mincing and huffing, occasionally cracking his knuckles - just as he'd been doing before failing to get through to them for the umpteenth time \- he paced the room, which was, perhaps, as opulent as any on an ex-council estate in the whole of England. Silver silk curtains, twin leather sofas, one along the wall facing the window, the other facing the pristine, white marble Victorian mantelpiece - but both perfectly positioned for goggling the widescreen TV in the corner - the handcrafted oak coffee table, the - oh no! - mint rug... Where had that come from? There'd never been much point in familiarising himself with the bloody show house; schemes for another transformation were always incubating. He often felt like a cuckoo chick that had somehow hatched in a department store's Easter display, baffled by the strange nest's turnover of shiny, multicoloured things that never seemed to do anything.

With a peck of guilt, he caught sight of the framed photographs of cute Alicia and Davie that had been the room's only constant fixtures, and which were presently mounted on the smooth lavender walls above the sofas. Then a passing motor's humdrum drone abducted his attention. His grey-blue eyes popping and his jaw dropping, he took on the appearance of a grotesque Looney Tunes' character shocked senseless to find itself this other side of the screen. Bizarrely, it seemed to befit him. Frantically running his chunky, calloused fingers through his thick, wavy brown locks, his lips silently formed the word 'shit'. He stared in horror out of the window at the immaculate silver Mondeo parked in the drizzly street. Was it coming to this? His transparent, ghostly reflection in the glazing gawped back at him with its head despairingly in its hands. It'd all drive him round the bend, blubber, blubber, it's not fair! From somewhere within him a steely voice demanded, 'Get a grip!' His hands dropped by his sides and he let the blank television screen lure his eyes. That couldn't tell him something he didn't want to know.

Ian Randall would have been a strikingly attractive man for his forty-two years if not for a hint of a double-chin and a pot belly. It stretched his plain black T-shirt into the shape of a gloomy meteor that eclipsed the hot, racy but earnest aura radiated by his chiselled, masculine features, wavy brown locks and robust six foot frame. Once upon a time, to dreamy young lasses - and in the pecking order of romantic heroes - Ian might have passed as a descendent of some dangerously lovable stable-lad on Mr Darcy's estate, or at least the lost cousin of a Hollywood heartthrob's stunt double. In Ian's youth, the nick of scar tissue over his left brow had conjured more than a touch of daring charm whenever his grey-blue eyes twinkled with desire for a girl, as if compellingly proclaiming love is the only thing worth living and fighting for. Ah, the fancies and idealisations of youth. Nowadays, aided and abetted by that flabby waistline, the faded scar might evidence a past of thuggery; sleazy pubs with broken bottles and football chants. If the truth was that he had never been anything like a conventional romantic hero or a violent villain, and that he now had the time to get back into super sexy shape - as his wife would once have put it - did it matter?

He collapsed into the sofa as if that malfunctioning robot he resembled whenever his back injury twinged had become a dead weight of scrap. The salesman's slick pitch about 'incomparable luxury' echoed through his mind, which had only ever experienced discomfort whenever he considered the price he was paying for it. The crooks who dream up those credit deals are worse than the devil - he could have expected to profit for a while in this life if he'd sold his soul at the proverbial, lonely crossroads rather than allowed himself to be seduced by an over-mortgaged mouth on commission at a store near you. The overtime he'd needed to keep up with this monstrous house must add up to a prison sentence! What had he done to deserve it?

More, bigger, better - the house seemed to have devoured both high street and internet stores; one top of the range digitalised washer after another, tumble dryers, microwaves, dishwashers, vacuum after broken, just out of warranty vacuum, the latest widescreen TV, Sky packages, laptops, games consoles, lush carpets and curtains, pine wardrobes and matching chests of drawers packed with enough outfits to keep the fashion shows of London, Paris and Milan running into the next season, luxury beds with sumptuous mattresses that would make Goldilocks squeal, 'Better than just right!' He glanced around stunned by what had become a nightmarish, alien environment. He'd practically lived at work. To think he'd boasted about it all. How had they got sucked into this?

The soles of his trainers had left, here and there, traces of crumbly dry mud on the otherwise spotless floor. In front of the marble hearth, her slyly-acquired new rug of rainbow hues in a pattern of overlapping and concentric circles was also soiled. That would be received like the design of life had taken a messy beating! He sniffed the air to be certain that it was only mud; the aroma of lavender oil that typically flooded the house tickled his nostrils as if he was developing an allergy. That was something. Sort of.

He'd muddied his retro adidas in The Dragon's car park, if that's what you call a few bags of gravel sparingly chucked across a bulldozed beer garden. After the bad news had put a premature end to the shift most of the men had agreed, amid the angry commotion in the locker-room, to an emergency meeting in the boozer over the way. Just a few others besides Ian bothered to take a final shower. Usually a ritual accompanied by banter and bawdy songs, the shushing rush of steaming water seemed to painfully, eerily pronounce that they were already exorcised ghosts. Like another bad omen, the rank smells of a blocked drain, burnt pies and the muddled, angry workers' sweat and cheap deodorants were commingling around The Dragon's packed, dreary taproom when he walked in. Even the cranky clown Mick Humphries seemed to grasp that the circus had left town. He solemnly pointed out to Ian - as he pushed through bodies to get to the bar - that he still had lather behind his ears. Mick would usually have soft-soaped Ian and twisted his laxity into a shitty, embarrassing prank. Ian scooped the cold, sticky bubbles onto an index finger and, unzipping his tracksuit top with the other hand, wiped them on his black T-shirt underneath. 'Cheers, Mick.'

'Frothier than the head on the beer, that was.'

'I'll bet. A pint, love.'

'I'm surprised to see you here,' Mick went on like a terrier suddenly baring his teeth.

'And me!' Someone else growled. 'Bloody blackleg.'

'He didn't break a strike, Al.'

'He would have done if there'd been one.'

'Big if, but I know where you're coming from.'

'Thanks, love.' Ian snatched his change, grabbed his beer, and tried to lose himself in the crowd where he caught pack-eat-stray glares wherever he turned. The men's heated, babbling discontent drowned out most of the words, if not entirely the riff, of the rock classic - You Really Got Me - playing on the CD jukebox. As the lead guitar mutedly tore into the solo, Johnny Jacks, the union rep, in an attempt to establish order, climbed on a table without realising that one of its legs was shorter than the others. Ill-tempered laugher erupted when the table wobbled and threatened to topple Johnny. 'That's just it! So it! The union should have seen it coming,' bellowed a heckler.

'It did, but you wouldn't listen,' Johnny blasted back, having stepped down onto a more stable stool. 'Didn't you notice the plant's been winding down for a month? How many times...?' Would they refuse to listen to anything but their own confusion?

Whether the suit and tie mob were illegally rushing the plant's closure - as Johnny claimed - the men quickly advised themselves into defeat, there was nothing they could do but cash their redundancy cheques. They'd seen the last of the commercial packaging to be manufactured in this neck of the woods, for sure. With that, a few started on the juice as if to mark the advent of a long holiday, while the majority hit it as if they were at their own wakes. Ian smelled bother. He guzzled his pint, said a few subdued see-you-arounds, and was the first to leave.

Driving home through the drizzle, his mind tiptoed round the implications of joblessness, as if they'd get bored of waiting for a fight and go away, shoulders drooping. He switched the radio on. Can't beat the speculation of the sporting world! 'And we'll be with you again tomorrow for more hot debate on all the issues...' Missed it. And as for the weather forecast, anyone can see the outlook is gloomy. What about some hum-along, sunshine pop? Hmm-hmm-a-hmm-hmm, erm... It was when he put his key in the front door's lock that the storm clouds opened up. His face blackened as he thought on that only last night they'd been cooking up something other than tasty sustenance in the kitchen. Had he heard Cathy say 'mission' as he'd drowsed in the living room in front of the news bulletin? He knew too well what their 'missions' entailed. 'What are the pair of you mischievously giggling about?'

'Nothing,' they'd called back in sweet harmony. 'We're the angels of the house,' Alicia sang in a silly soprano that was too close to sarcasm. Lowered voices succeeded another bout of dizzy giggling and he left it at that, too dog-tired to risk a no-win quarrel. Wide awake in the cold light of a dull, disastrous morning, everything was different. All their recent talk about the best jewellers' shops! And what about the incriminating history on Alicia's laptop when he'd borrowed it to check his lottery ticket? He reached straight for his mobile and made the first of his many abortive calls right there on the front doorstep.

Waiting for them to return was like waiting for Christmas, dreading that Santa had abandoned you, because, even though you'd tried to be good, trying just wasn't good enough. Daytime TV's smarm-fest irritated his gnawing ambivalence of self-pitying dread and spiteful anticipation, and he dug a finger into the remote. The adverts had lost their funny fizz and he turned them and it off, thinking on that he'd once entered a competition to distinguish the all-time number one commercial in two hundred and fifty words. Trying to be clever, he'd waxed lyrical in a poem - the lines rhymed at least - about how 'milk has gotta lotta bottle'. He posted his entry assured that he couldn't be denied the prize holiday. Months later, when the day-to-day to-ing and fro-ing he wanted a break from had bumped and knocked his flirtation with verse to the back of his mind, he'd read in the Sun that Mr Johnson of Derby had won over the judges with a sonnet that declared love for the 'for mash get Smash' classic. My English teacher was a chump, Ian had reasoned at the time. Yet, of late, he'd moodily championed the theory that there was some kind of conspiracy against him. If it had no rhyme or reason, he had enough material to fill a compendium of the world's worst jokes.

For god's sake, when were they going to get home? They had to be told to take it back!

The swift pint in the pub hadn't packed a kick at the time, yet a flat wave of after-alcohol emptiness washed over Ian. It was always the same when he started drinking. One was never enough because it was all too much if he didn't go on tipping them back. He dragged his arse into the kitchen, opened the fridge, crammed the remaining half of a pork pie into his mouth and, munching away, grabbed a can of strong foreign lager. He clicked back the ring-pull, binned it, took a generous draught to wash down the pie, belched, and reached into his pocket to inspect his phone. Look at the state of it! If they weren't so ignorant and had bothered to answer his calls, it'd still be in tip-top shape. He could kill them. He should have stamped his foot down last night. No, way before that. He drained his can and cracked open another.

Halfway through the first can of the next four-pack, he finally heard a key turning in the back door's lock. 'Let's get out of these boots, phew, put the kettle on and - woooo! - feast our eyes on everything! What treats!' his wife Cathy said as she stepped inside patently wearing that annoying giddy mood shopping centres inspired in her. Her and her retail therapy, well, the day had come when they'd discovered it cured nothing and increased the likelihood of contracting gibbering idiocy. And everything?

'Where the hell have you two been?' he boomed, jumping to his feet as if that grotesque cartoon character had repossessed him as its nemesis fooled around with an electrified cattle prod. 'I've been trying to get hold of you for hours!' His hands flapped in the air and - ouch! - he blinked at the stab of pain in his back. Nimble feet could be heard climbing the stairs. The door he was glaring at swung open.

'What are you doing here?' Cathy asked sharply, her nose turning up, as if she'd walked in on an unwashed squatter. As much as a disinfectant as a love potion, her perfume diffused through the room. She certainly hadn't sprayed it on for her husband's benefit. 'Shouldn't you be at work?'

'Breaking the habit of a lifetime, am I?'

They looked at each other with such simmering malignity it was a marvel they hadn't given each other up long ago. Over time Ian had stopped noticing that his wife's youthful loveliness had stunningly bloomed with each passing birthday. A number of years his junior, she epitomised style like tequila margaritas do frolicsome holidays in the sun. Perhaps it was the inevitable loss of innocence that goes hand in hand with life's hurly-burly and responsibilities; Ian no longer felt the need to protect his precious red rose, which was how he'd once addressed her in Valentine's cards after coming across an article on Burns in a Sunday supplement. Someone had left the magazine on a train that was destined somewhere he'd long-forgotten. It wasn't that, back then, he couldn't understand other famous words of love, especially those of popular songs; the simple, earthy, enthralling sentiment of Burns perfectly articulated his feelings. But, no, you haven't the energy to nurture and cultivate a fixation when you're rooted in shift patterns. And whether the mature woman's petals were still gorgeously fragile, Ian had learned that her thorns were as prickly as fencing swords. He now thought himself a lucky man only when he was sozzled, and he wasn't nearly so far gone yet. And when she was done up to knock 'em dead it meant one thing - he'd been set aside for survival so he could be done over time and again. He glared at the five high street bags she hadn't put down in the hall in her astonishment at hearing his irritating gob. On the Saturdays she knew he wasn't at work she'd have left them stowed in the boot of her Clio hatchback until she was sure some manly nonsense had preoccupied him.

Cathy's long blond hair was up in a bun, which pronounced the near-perfect symmetry of her proud, startling beauty. Her mascara was delicately, expertly applied to tease out her big, sparkling, oval eyes' suggestion of girlish mystery, which was deepened by cosmetic lenses that changed the colour the world looked into so often that her husband - if anyone asked him - would have been unable to identify their true tint and nature without collaborating with an old Polaroid. Her fleshy, ripe lips had been at the heart of many a local man's lusty fantasies, and aware that they considered her to be little more than a breathing, fully inflated doll, she had developed into an accomplished actress. If, as is commonly acknowledged, it is a man's world and that entire world is a stage, Cathy had meticulously honed her role, accentuating her luscious physical glamour which never failed to serve as a foil on the rare occasions she fluffed her lines. Her husband seemed to be the only man that wasn't enchanted; she'd taken to pretending he didn't exist when he threatened to seize the director's chair. Yet, for all her magical, improvised performances, she'd misplaced her sense of self. Her love of her kids provided her only stable footing. What's more, she'd developed the horribly vague suspicion that most people had to be flawed and incomplete in order for the world to go round.

'Well?' The stack heel of her thigh-high, black leather boots impatiently clicked against the laminate floor. After glancing down and realising she'd neglected to take them off, disdain contorted her lips into an ironic smile. Should the floor have one infinitesimal scratch her husband's mouthing as soon as she'd walked through the door condemned him, guilty without trial. Today's image was the aloof, classy dominatrix who specialised in never giving a fool a chance. Her black, wool skirt was breathtakingly tight and short enough to show just a teasing glimpse of silky leg above her big boots. Her black, patent leather Italian jacket was unzipped to reveal a mouth-watering hint of her fleshy, voluptuous fruits underneath. And though she'd slipped into and wore the look with effortless aplomb, whereas other women might throw it on and tramp around with awkward vulgarity, her husband's knees refused to weaken.

'They've only gone and done it,' he snarled, 'while you've been out splashing it around the shops like there's no tomorrow.'

'Carry on talking to me like that and there won't be a tomorrow as far as we're concerned.' Her curiosity, however, was greater than her ire. 'Who's gone and done what?'

'Don't you ever listen to me? I've warned you plenty of times. The union have suspected it for months.'

'Don't the union talk out of their backsides? You annulled your membership, remember?'

'Never mind what I said and did. We're all redundant - just like that.' He clicked his finger and thumb. 'The work's gone to their other place the other side of the country.'

'I see,' she said, thoughtfully puckering her cherry red lips. It pleased him that he'd caught her without a comeback for once:

'So, you see, your shop until you drop has got to stop. Or else the roof will cave in on this palace you've made out of an ex-council dump.' He sarcastically gave the four walls a royal wave before polishing off his lager. Bending over to put his empty on the coffee table, he winced.

'And I've told you,' Cathy retorted, 'to go and see the doctor with your back.'

'Never mind that. What have you got there?' His eyes narrowed to slits like peep-holes from which to give her shopping bags a thorough ogling. Drat! Something from a jeweller's would be a small package and Alicia would be safeguarding it up in her room. Not that Cathy's hands didn't hold enough overpriced damnation to be going on with. 'You'll have to take everything back. How's that sound?'

'Like your usual nonsense. When did they tell you they were closing?'

'Huh! When do you think?' He whipped a pouch of tobacco from the rear pocket of his jeans and, remembering his ruined phone in the other pocket, rolled a cigarette, his hands shaking with mad passion. 'With the state of things in the world,' he spat, 'we're in a hole. God knows what it will be like in the area now one of its biggest employers has deserted.'

'You don't smoke in... Look at the floor! Mud on my new rug!'

Demonstrating his rebellion against her house rules, he let the flame of his disposable lighter burn until the wheel got hot on his thumb, and then he bent towards it to light the droopy smoke he'd fixed up. 'Us men have been treated like dirt. A bit of muck on the floor won't make much difference...'

'Enough! Put that out!' Against her common strategy - premeditated indifference \- Cathy's claws extended. 'Don't you dare come home and take your problems out on us! You've been more than happy to take your fair share, to be the king of your petty little Englishman's castle.'

'My problems? I'm alone in the world, am I? Excluded from the house of love because I'm not earning for delicacies, delights...'

'Don't be so melodramatic,' she tartly cut him out. Her lips thinned and she belligerently glared from his disgusting, floppy cigarette to her dirtied rug, while defensively holding her shopping bags behind her, as if he'd drop it if somehow he couldn't see them. 'We don't stop living because of an itty-bitty crisis...'

'Itty-bitty? That's a good one!'

'I've been out because of something that's important to our daughter. Get it?'

He watched his smoke rings slowly break up into amorphous grey-blue clouds under the ceiling, figuring he might as well have handed her a loaded gun with which to shoot him down. He screwed up his nose at the cigarette as if he didn't really want it, opened the window and flicked it out onto the lawn. She acknowledged his concession by saying, frostily, but not altogether without encouragement, 'Something else will turn up.'

'And by then we might have been buried alive under bills. Buying rubbish like that' - he pointed at her bags - 'has to come to an end!'

'It's good quality stuff from a closing down sale, actually. We got it dirt cheap not unlike someone who isn't a million miles away.'

'Just great. You go out and waste a small fortune on the junk no one else wanted to buy in the first place.'

'You're horrible! The nastiest man that ever... ever... called himself a dad!' It was Alicia, pushing past her mother to get into the room and in on the row, and momentarily uniting her parents with the thought that the tantrums of the terrible twos were an eternal, earaching curse in her case. Alicia would have screamed and stomped over such a tacit understanding if she'd ever suspected its existence; there was nothing so obvious to the girl that she could stick two fingers up at the world over anything and everything because her case was a special one. Wasn't she destined for great things?

Like her mother, Alicia looked fabulous and many people had guessed they were sisters when they were out and about. Even today, when Alicia's silky blond hair flowed down over her shoulders and she was in casual, figure-hugging blue jeans and a pink vest in contrast to her mother's impeccable coiffure and dominatrix splendour, their likeness was astounding. The family photo album revealed Alicia to be such an uncanny double of her mother at the same age that almost everybody who turned its pages exclaimed 'My word!' - or words to that effect - before attesting, as if complimenting Cathy, that the similarities were only skin deep, after all.

'You. Don't. Care!' Alicia punctuated each word by jabbing an accusatory finger in her father's direction. 'We've been buying things that will help to develop my career!'

Her outburst had the least desirable effect; it tickled her father's blokey sense of humour, which had become ever cruder the longer he'd worked in environments with scant mental stimulus. These days he never picked up on a situation's subtleties and laughed only at the downright outrageous, perverse or brutish. Tears of frustration welled in Alicia's eyes as her father loudly guffawed, looking her over from head to foot, certain she'd never be a match for him. It escaped him that she wasn't meant to be his match.

'Let's calm down with a cup of tea,' Cathy said with a theatrical sigh, sidling into the hall and through to the kitchen, making sure her shopping bags went with her. She hurriedly opened the pantry door and crammed the bags between the vegetable and wine racks like a furtive alcoholic stashing bottles of much-loved hard stuff. 'Or would anyone prefer coffee?' she shouted into the room, closing the pantry up.

'I'll have a beer while Alicia does her comedy routine.'

'You won't find it so side-splitting when I'm famous and I tell the papers what a rotten father I've put up with,' Alicia shrieked. 'Everybody will hate, hate, hate you!'

'My darling princess, you've failed two major auditions - the third time we'll all get lucky and you'll lose your voice.' Her father gleefully slapped his knee and a tear trickled down Alicia's cheek. She slumped into a sofa, her bottom lip quivering; how could anybody say such things to her?

'Don't listen to him, babe,' her mother said, returning empty-handed; no bags and no beer, magic. 'Ian, how could you say that? You know she's got a sensitive, artistic temperament. She was ill at the time of her first audition and then she had an attack of nerves due to her inexperience. She's such a soulful voice and she can dance. That's exactly why she's attracted an agent. She'll get experience working in the clubs and then she'll be ready to take on the world. She's far prettier than the contestants on the talent shows. You've said it yourself when you've been in a better mood.'

'I'm glad one of my parents appreciates my genius,' Alicia said, wiping her cheeks.

'An agent? He's an old perv who's got a few contacts in deadbeat clubs. Big deal. This is exactly what I'm talking about - it's time this family got real rather than bags full of labels and dreams. Why isn't she at college?'

'We deserve some things. That's real!'

'Not now everybody is going mad for austerity!'

'Humbug! If we'd lived on what we've been paid, we'd have had nothing but austerity over the years whether they said on the TV the country was booming or going bust.' She flicked at the sleeve of her patent black leather jacket as if ridding it of invisible fluff. 'What sort of a life is that?'

'And that attitude explains why I never get to see the credit card bills? How do you think we're going to keep our heads above water now I've lost my job? I won't get another like it in a hurry.'

'It wasn't what you'd call a career.'

'It was one of the best paid jobs around here.'

'And it didn't pay enough. Nothing comes cheap these days.'

'Don't I know it. And for someone who spends so much time losing her head in catalogues, you've a truly terrifying comprehension of our predicament.' Because it was true, boom or bust, they would never have made it on their wages alone. Back when they'd married even half-decent jobs were scarce - the area's major industry had received the kiss of death for the love of hard-hearted modernisation. Their parents had done what they could to send them on the way, and the newly-weds had returned from their honeymoon in Scarborough to a spic and span home furnished with mended, repainted, revarnished, second-hand stuff. The oldies, bless them, couldn't extravagantly shell out for weddings - they had their own pressures. And, anyway, young Ian and Cathy were stuck on each other and happy, regardless of the ugly view from the social ladder's lowest rungs. The couple only started to appear comfortable when they got access to credit. While his wife had been recklessly blasé, if the truth be known, Ian had also caught the bug. Live now because tomorrow never comes. It was infectious. A virus whose delirium was like a high that soothed pain right up to the moment it turned fatal.

Cathy took her husband's silence to be a return of the little reason he was capable of. 'It's going to take ages to get that awful tobacco smell out of the room. What got into you?'

'You know she'll never get anywhere singing, don't you?'

'Mum, make him stop saying that!'

'And the other brat - he's made it to school?'

'He can't wait to leave on a morning since he started pirating films, music, god knows what else. That should please you. Your son's a criminal but, hey, so what? He's making his own money and not spending yours.'

'Pah!'

'Don't you think you need to apologise to your daughter? And after that you can get out the vacuum and clean up that mud.'

'Have you parked round the back?'

'What's that got to do with what I've just said? You do go off on them at times.'

'You'll have to sell your car.'

'I pay for that car,' Cathy said, laughing, after scrutinising her husband's face and finding not a trace of a joke. 'I need it to get to work.'

'It's got to go. We can't afford to run two motors. I'll give you a lift whenever you need one.'

'You need the money, sell yours. I've still got a job.'

'Till death do us part, huh?'

'Don't start that,' Cathy groaned.

'When two hearts beat as one.'

'Please! Spare me!'

'Ah, yes, you're all right, Jackie.'

'Yes, she is!' Alicia had critically watched her parents sparring. No, she'd never hated anyone as much as her dad! 'And she can do better than you!' She sprang from her seat, her nostrils flaring, the lustre of fiery hysteria in her eyes. 'She's already got somebody else!'

'Alicia, the show is over. Grow up.' Her father's chest heaved with bored fatigue. 'Just because you can't always have your own way doesn't mean you've the right to stir things up with lies.'

'He's been coming round when you've been working afternoons or nights, and when Mum could persuade Davie to go out.' Alicia laughed inanely. 'He's far nicer than you and, for your information, I didn't have to get my new outfits in the sales because Michael paid for them. He's loaded and he's somebody. Why don't you go beg him to give you a job?'

'Cathy, do you see what spoiling our daughter has done?'

If looks could kill, Cathy's glare would have arranged for Alicia to freewheel down a steep hill in a hearse and over the edge of a cliff, just to be certain. Alicia sniggered nervously, hopping from one foot to the other like a child uncertain of her place in the big kids' playground.

Ian was gratified to see that his wife still retained a basic sense of right and wrong. 'I'll let you sort this one out,' he said, coolly, taking a step back towards the window as if presenting his wife and daughter with enough space to slug it out.

They didn't seem to hear him.

'He said the family needs some reality, so I've injected him with some,' Alicia eventually blurted, biting her glittery nails.

'Get to your room!'

'I only...'

'Now!'

'Ok! Ok! Ok!' Alicia petulantly tossed back her head, swishing her blond locks through the air, but it was all show. Her revolt had blown out; she cowered before squeezing between her mother and the door jamb on her way out. That she believed her mother might strike her - the golden girl - caused a shattering revelation. Gasping, Ian fumbled in his pocket for his tobacco. His eyes rolled wildly while his trembling fingers rolled a cigarette. He lit up with such a tigerish expression that his wife thought of diving for the phone to call the police. He had never been a violent man, but how would he react to her betrayal of him?

Speechlessly, they weighed each other up.

His brow and palms were sticky with sweat. She crossed her arms and her legs, closing herself down to him as a shiver ran down her spine. He flicked ash in the beer can on the coffee table, incapable of collecting his thoughts that had fragmented like a mirror struck with a hammer. A great thud shook the ceiling and their necks immediately craned upwards. Alicia had started throwing and knocking things around her room. Crash! Something else went over. 'Pack that in, lady!' Cathy screamed.

Silence.

Cathy defiantly met his animal glare. 'You'd have noticed if you hadn't been so immersed in your mates down the club, or playing with cars, or whatever else was so important.'

'I've always been working.' He spoke with a guttural whisper through clenched teeth. A scream of such savagery had gathered in him that he was terrified of releasing it. He lost colour as if holding in his pain was poisoning him. Alicia's revenge had stripped him down to the very bare bones of the lonely man that he was. No match for a man like him? The truth his daughter knew had had the power to wipe him out. 'And on the day I lose my job,' he said with a pathetic, oscillating whine that made his wife cringe, 'this is the sympathy I get.'

'It's been over for years, Ian, don't you understand that?' And without waiting for a reply she walked from the doorway, leaving him to the chilling nothingness at the beginning of the very end.

He numbly dropped his cigarette in the used beer can and it sizzled out in the dregs. This... can't... be... Why? When? With who?

Cathy reappeared and leant on the open door, sipping a glass of red wine. 'It's only plonk,' she smirked with delicious bravado. 'It won't break the bank.'

'Let me guess,' Ian thundered - her sarcasm had been like a hit from a lightning bolt that temporarily infused him with the power to pull himself together - 'you stayed for the sake of the kids. The evergreen secret behind a million...' A lump formed in his throat; he was disgusted and infuriated because he couldn't swallow it away and have his say. Another drink would have shot some charge in his veins, but he couldn't bear to brush past her to get to the fridge. His skin crawled at the thought of touching the treacherous bitch. His chest swelling with emotional fury, his head so full of accusations and wild questions it was fit to burst, he knew that he had to getaway or he'd do something he'd regret. He found himself moving towards the door and away from the impulse to put his foot through the television.

'Don't you dare go near Alicia', Cathy hissed, backing off into the hall. She drained her glass and thrust it in front of her like a weapon, holding her ground at the kitchen door.

As if his shock had suddenly developed the eyes in the back of his head that he'd needed for many months, he swivelled round and swooped for his wallet and car keys that he'd left on the coffee table. He beat down the urge to overturn it and reeled into the hall, his hurt pride prohibiting him from looking at her. The front door didn't slam as it had so often done before. It was wide open.

On the doorstep, he sucked in fresh air hoping it and the fine drizzle that was falling would cool his boiling blood and clear the seething smog of his mind. Making out that he was rubbing something from his eye, he strode down the garden path, through the open gate, onto the pavement and up to his car. Though his legs were shaky, he had managed to walk in straight lines and anyone watching would not have suspected that anything was amiss. He absently got in. Seatbelt. Ignition. A cigarette. A tear fell onto the Rizla paper and ruined his smoke in the making. He pulled another paper from his near-empty packet and started to roll again. After lighting up and inhaling deeply, which did nothing to calm him, he switched on the radio. Nothing the newsreader announced sunk in; Ian only sought a human voice that might alleviate the loneliness that was already eating him up. He'd lost his job. His ex-workmates thought he'd kissed the bosses' butts. His wife had screwed another man. His kids... Nooooooo! He beat the steering wheel with the balls of his fists and butted it.

With feral, desperate eyes he pulled up at the junction at the main road, looking left, right - nothing was coming and where was he going? He might have stalled indefinitely if the old goat from across the street hadn't pulled up behind him. He guessed the goat would be turning right towards town, so he spun the steering to the left and put his foot down.

Slumped on a sofa, her face buried in the leather, Cathy sobbed with grief or relief, she couldn't tell. She'd often wondered what would happen when her secret finally broke, and though she had prepared terse lines of sharp wisdom for numerous eventualities, she hadn't been ready for such alarming abruptness and jarring finality. Her family had collapsed, just like that. Her marriage was over.

No matter how terrible the feeling, no one can relentlessly mourn with such wretched intensity, if only because it is exhausting. A sleep-like peace appeared to come over her, though she occasionally trembled and sniffled. She still had dreams. Someone else. He was the one she should have always waited for and... 'Mum?' Alicia stuck her neck out and her head round the door. 'Are you all right, Mum? Is there anything I can get you?'

'Get out, you little bitch,' Cathy snapped, without looking up.
Chapter Two

Beyond the spits of rain that flecked the kitchen window, night still clung to the dying weekend and held off Monday's mad rituals, shrouding the estate with a gloomy ambience like that generated by outnumbered men stuck in a flooding trench. Day, like an enemy, was inexorably creeping up.

Cathy's head was achy and thick, as if the sandman had clubbed her to sleep with the bottle she'd emptied of red wine. Usually, in such circumstances, and in order to get going, she plucked some motivational adage from the gospel of colloquialisms - its bite-sized tips and easily-digestible slices of wisdom formed the standard main course of so many conversations with so many acquaintances. Why, even her glossy magazines chipped in and preached the absolute value of Top Ten Tips. It just took a willing suspension of disbelief to bend such clichés into laws to live by, easy enough when you're rushed, amongst other things.

But this wasn't any Monday morning, and it seemed too much effort for Cathy to overcome herself. She slouched over a hot, sugary coffee absently wishing to be gently wrapped in the peace of the house all day. She groaned; it was no good. Excuses might lead to prying questions and, worse luck, she couldn't afford to phone in sick. Anyway, sleepy-eyed, grumbling siblings would soon be rising. The peace wouldn't last. It was keeping busy that would bring on her much anticipated moment. Click; her engine reluctantly started to turn over.

Michael had been the first thing on Cathy's waking mind and she'd panicked, clumsily reaching out to silence her alarm and knocking it to the floor where it screeched like a bratty whistleblower. Shut up! She snatched its plug from the socket. Her heart was pounding. Had she dreamt of her lover and spilled her secret by unconsciously responding to his tender praise? She flicked her bedside light on. Her husband's side of the bed was empty. He had gone. Her new life beckoned. She experienced a thrilling glow that numbed the symptoms of last night's excesses as if restorative fairy dust had permeated her skin. Oh, Michael!

For too long they had been too frightened to join hands, close their eyes and leap over the icy, haunting abyss of dead relationships. But why? Their immeasurable love would surely carry them any distance! They'd soar to the other side, where everlasting togetherness is embraced and... What? Cathy didn't know because she'd never been. Their wonderful adventure was just beginning. Oh, she knew that sounded like she'd read too many romantic novels and seen too many sentimental films, but isn't it possible to be the heroine of your own life? Those who chase dreams possess the power! Look at Alicia's smarting, indomitable pride after her dreams were ridiculed! Alicia had been willing to push her own mother over the edge, not physically, of course, but emotionally, spiritually... How vile! How courageous! And now, because of Alicia, she was freefalling towards Michael's arms. Only would he catch her? Last night, on her fourth glass of red wine, Cathy had been tormented by doubts. The image she'd created like a final, dramatic movie scene in which she fell into a safe, chivalrous clinch seemed positively ludicrous. And did she and Michael want everything to so drastically change? Hadn't their secret been a mutually convenient way of stirring up the excitement that made life worth living? Did they really love each other? What is love, anyway? Maybe the problem was that Cathy wasn't used to losing control. Over the years she'd so subtly used her razzle-dazzle that she wasn't nearly as powerless as many of the women she knew. No man would ever destroy her self-confidence and turn her into a drudge. And that was why Michael was special. He built her up. Made it possible for her to cherish fantastic aspirations.

Cathy had put Titanic - her favourite movie - into the DVD player and poured another large wine. It was bliss to watch it without Ian's snide remarks. The rarity of such love is the irrepressible attraction! Doesn't that explain why, generation after generation, the very best writers had made it their theme? For they seemed to have done as far as she could tell. Unthinkingly, Cathy stroked the cool, smooth screen of her Kindle resting on the sofa's arm; the unfolding plot of real life had left her unable to concentrate on the words of fictional love, no matter how gripping and sensational the story. Something had happened to her husband on pages she'd never read and which were most probably unwritten. Ian no longer understood his own heart let alone hers. And in her heart she knew she deserved better...

'Oh!' Cathy breathlessly exclaimed when the shower's blast of hot, steaming water shocked and reddened her skin. She adjusted the balance of hot and cold and the cooler, invigorating spray swept away the depressed, sickly sleepiness that had reasserted itself. Lathering herself from her toes to her neck with lavender-perfumed gel, she tried to envision Michael's reaction when he learned that her beauty belonged to him, and him alone. The sleek, revealing black number she'd trailed round the nearby city's malls yesterday afternoon to find would bewitch him. Wouldn't it? Only at her tempting best could she turn her plans into reality. As Cathy rubbed herself down with the fluffy white towel, the plughole gurgled and retched. Ian had never got round to cleaning the blocked drain. She'd get some of that caustic stuff from town to pour down it.

Tiptoeing down the stairs so as to not disturb Alicia and Davie, it dawned on Cathy that she should think better of Michael, and the fact that she was edgy... Damn. Everything's such a headache! She really shouldn't drink on a night before the early shift; isn't there time to relax on the weekend before afternoons? No matter what she thought of Ian, it was still a stressful time. She should avoid anything that might further unsettle her until she adapted to such a huge change. They'd been married for eighteen years, and she'd been a teen scarcely older than Alicia, which is and was far too young to tie the knot. Her wedding day had been grand, nevertheless, and she'd revere its memory even if nearly everything that had followed needed erasing. Should a little self-deception be required to preserve the virginal, fairytale white of her big day in a ye olde church, then so be it. It happens but once in a girl's life. Fail to select the right paints, canvas and material, and the bigger picture - the one you want to see - will always be sullied.

Cathy had hardly spoken to Alicia since last week, the day Ian left. Yet perhaps she should be grudgingly thankful; her daughter's ill-natured pride had ironically done her the finest of turns. As long as everything worked out. Despite Alicia's defective personality - oh, that's too cruel - the kids were no longer such a responsibility. Alicia was making a go of it at college: Davie was sailing through the last year of school. Michael might even be a better role model than Ian, who'd put food on the table while never really being there for the kids. It could work out.

Unshaven, reeking of whiskey, Ian had called two days ago - Friday afternoon, when Alicia and Davie were out - to stuff his clothes and a few other belongings into the scruffy, oversized sports bag he'd so embarrassingly insisted on using to pack his clothes for family holidays. From Portugal and across the Mediterranean to Turkey, and then beyond, he'd shown Cathy up. In fact, his surly, drunken visit had perfectly illustrated his lack of style. She hadn't expected him to chat wistfully about the way things had turned out, but he could have asked about the kids' welfare rather than tripping up at the top of the stairs. Luckily for him, he'd fallen onto his face rather than crashed down to the hall.

'Are you going to arrange to see the kids?' she'd called to him, dumping a pair of odd socks he hadn't wanted into the wheelie bin at the same moment he dropped his bag of possessions into the boot of his silver Mondeo. His brother, Dan, was sitting in the driving seat, nodding to Iron Maiden, pretending that he hadn't seen her. They could both run to the hills for all she cared! That Ian wasn't drink driving at least indicated some decency survived, she supposed, however meagre it was in quantity.

On hearing his wife's question, Ian had glanced over his shoulder, muttered something, and staggered to the passenger door, which he had difficulty opening without Dan's help from inside. Cathy could understand Ian being angry with Alicia, but what had Davie done? She'd have rich pickings for her solicitor if her fool husband didn't sober up. Why had she thrown away so many years?

Alicia had known about her mother's relationship with Michael almost as soon as its first buds opened. Sick of the restriction of a few hours in impersonal hotel rooms, Cathy had invited Michael to a candlelit meal at home one evening when Ian was working overtime up to midnight, Davie had arranged to go to the cinema, and Alicia was partying. Thinking you can't take too many precautions, Cathy had granted permission for the kids to sleepover at friends' places. How could she have foreseen that Alicia would tearfully explode when a rival for a boy's attention jealously criticised her dress? So wrapped up under her quilt, Cathy only became aware of her daughter's homecoming when she thumped on the bedroom door just as Michael's body jerked towards a climax. Oh my god, the memory made Cathy shudder! 'Mum, who's in there?' Alicia had demanded to know. 'Dad's at work!' Michael's face froze in ecstatic horror and Cathy shimmied her hips, unhooked the two-backed beast and, as his seed spilled onto the sheets, tumbled out of bed stretching for her dressing gown on the floor. Red-faced, her elbow sore, Cathy opened the door just wide enough to peek out. 'There's only me, darling. I was tired and decided I needed some extra beauty sleep.'

'I heard someone!'

'There isn't...'

'You liar!' Alicia stomped down the stairs. 'I'm telling Dad!' she hollered. 'Just wait while he gets in!'

Cathy buckled under her shame and fell against her closed bedroom door, her eyes shut tight, her arms outstretched like she'd been hoisted onto a crucifix. 'Oh, oh, oh,' she agonisingly moaned.

'Let's not be rash,' Michael said in a low, steady voice. Though flushed from his endeavours, he had regained his typical unwavering composure and pulled on his grey suit with astonishing promptness. His back straight, his chin high, he fastened his tie aided by Cathy's full-length mirror beside her antique chest of drawers. Michael wore business suits for their dates so not to arouse his wife's suspicions, besides, on the occasion he'd turned up casually dressed, his ordinariness had disappointed Cathy, try as she had to hide it. When Michael wasn't around she found it difficult to describe his face, which only confirmed it was the man and not his looks that matters. Wasn't useless Ian handsome? Cathy's eyes blinked open and she watched Michael in the mirror. Goblin green eyes, slightly snout-like hooter, thin lips and a grey, fast-receding hairline; he was plain ugly. Yet his finely tailored suits symbolised power and culture, the things that lifted him above the crowd. 'Let's go and see what we can do. After you get dressed.'

'Yes.' Cathy got off her crucifix and obediently picked her black French knickers from the polished floorboards.

Prostrate on a sofa, Alicia refused to acknowledge her mother's soft entreaties and stared up at the ceiling. In her retro, floral party dress she looked like a broken china doll that a morbid little mummy had laid out in an impromptu, homely chapel of rest. 'She's traumatised, Michael. What have we done? My poor baby.'

'No!' Alicia squealed and turned over, face-down, when Cathy tried to caress her cheeks.

Cathy looked close to screaming as she placed her hands on her own cheeks.

'I deeply wish this had never happened, Alicia,' Michael mellifluously apologised, going down on one knee. 'Your mother and I have been very good friends for a long time and tonight - and only tonight - we made a mistake. It's my fault. I wouldn't listen. If only I could recompense you for the upset I've caused.'

Alicia flipped from her belly to her back and eyed him severely, hatefully.

'Perhaps I'd better leave.' Michael got to his feet, his knees creaking, and sombrely said to Cathy, 'I'll show myself out.'

'Wait!' Alicia was staring at his shoes in wonder. 'Don't go yet.'

'Alicia, are you all right?' Why did her girl stare at Michael's laces? Had she taken a funny turn and was considering stringing... No! Unthinkable! 'Answer me, Alicia. What is it?'

'You want me to stay?' Michael's faint smile hinted at some kind of recognition.

'You've nice shoes.'

'Thank you.' His smile slowly broadened, his eyes twinkling.

'What the blazes? Alicia, I said, are you all right?'

'I won't say a word if you buy me all - and I mean all - those clothes I showed my mum online the other day.'

'That's blackmail, lady!'

'Mum, he wants to recompense me. Didn't you hear?'

'He didn't mean like that! It's immoral!'

'Hark who's talking!' Alicia jolted upright. 'I suppose you'll try to tell me that Dad married you in the house of God so you could shag Michael in his bed while he's at work.'

'Don't talk like that. Please.'

'Oh, Michael! Yes, Michael!' Alicia mocked the passion that had rocked the house as she'd entered. 'Harder! Harder!'

'How dare you?'

'I dare tell Dad, trust me.'

'You'll be in for it, young lady.'

'I will? Huh, and I suppose you'll be congratulated.'

Michael coughed into his hand. 'Your girl has a point,' he murmured, 'not very well presented, but it is a point.'

'Are you suggesting that we pay my daughter off?'

'I'm saying that we've made this mistake just once.' He winked on Alicia's blind side. 'Should everybody suffer because of one misdemeanour? Now, Alicia is clearly upset. A gift might make her feel better.' Michael pulled his black leather wallet from his trouser pocket. 'How much do you need? It is Alicia, isn't it?'

'At least, erm,' - her eyes greedily marvelled at the wad poking out of his wallet - 'well, four hundred.'

'I think I can accommodate that,' Michael smiled, unfazed, already counting out twenty pound notes. '...Two hundred and eighty, three hundred, three hundred and twenty. I'll give the rest to your mother by Saturday. Happy shopping.'

'Michael, this is not only wrong, it's such a risk.'

'It isn't any risk at all.' Alicia's eyes lit up as she went through the wad like a youngster with her first flipbook. 'If I take this money, I'll be just as guilty in Dad's eyes. So I won't say a word.'

'It's not right!'

'So you'd like Dad to find out?'

'No, but, Alicia, come on, see...' What should she see? That her mother's a trollop? Cathy's lip trembled.

'We don't always like the most necessary deals we make,' Michael said, humbly, like he'd been scorched by the world many times over.

'Just like I don't like coming home and listening to that grunting and groaning.' Alicia reached for the TV remote. 'Now leave me in peace so I can get over it!'

'As you wish,' said Michael, turning. 'Goodbye.' Cathy followed him out, glancing disbelievingly at her daughter.

At the back door in the kitchen, Cathy demanded to know, 'What sort of parent - what sort of people - bribe a teenage girl?'

'Pragmatic lovers,' Michael quietly replied, looking to the floor.

'You don't mean to say you think we're going to carry this on?' Cathy's incredulity cut through the air and she winced, thinking that Alicia must have heard. 'It's impossible,' she violently whispered.

'I can't stand to lose you.' Michael took Cathy's hand and raised it to his lips. 'Darling, we can get through this.'

'Just go!' Cathy snatched away her hand and averted her gaze. The joint of beef was still roasting in the oven.

'I'll be in touch.'

'Michael! Go!'

'I'll phone a cab from the pub down the way to the car park, then. Cheerio, my cherub.'

The second the door closed behind Michael, Alicia ran out of the living room and up the stairs to her bedroom. Her sobs could be heard for an hour, maybe more, before she either settled somewhat or fell asleep.

Tears aside, perhaps Alicia had taught her mother a crude, clear lesson in 'getting exactly what you want and now!' Something changed in Cathy from that day on. By anybody's reckoning she had previously splashed out to keep herself, her children and her home just how she liked; now she became passionately extravagant. The rift between her and her husband soon opened into a gulf, not that he noticed he was like a man marooned on an iceberg floating out to deep, tropical seas. He even seemed pleased in his gruff, vacant way. Cathy had her foibles; whose wife doesn't? She revelled in some kind of happiness so he must be doing something right. Better still, if she could have what she wanted, then he could get a few things, too. A hardworking man could expect a new car every year, couldn't he? Only Ian often tossed and turned on a night; what they said in the newspapers or on the TV about unprecedented prosperity seemed too good to be true. His wages certainly weren't rising; those bloody plastic cards were paying for everything. Rows with Cathy - who seemingly perfected a couldn't care less attitude overnight - inevitably ensued. Every time the dust settled, Ian brushed it off by confessing that he liked her new stuff and, well, long successful relationships have their pressures and cycles, don't they? He genuinely was so oblivious to his marriage's deathly, downward spiral. Like a big, gormless kid so mesmerised by a brightly painted spinning top he failed to stop following it as it whizzed, wobbled and disappeared down an open manhole.

Of course, two years on, courtesy of Alicia, Ian bitterly understood what he'd fallen for while his wife stood poised to claim her new, improved model. After she completed her final, winning moves, which included, for the time being, carrying on with the sad resolution of a woman whose husband has walked out...

Look at the time! Twenty-five to six! She'd just make it if she got her act together right now! Cathy's black leather handbag dangled by its straps from the back of her chair. She rummaged in it, produced a sheet of paracetamol and popped two into her yawn. Their chemical bitterness in her dry mouth caused her to screw up her eyes and she quickly picked up and tipped back her coffee mug, which clunked back down as she swallowed. The cartoon daisies painted on the mug continued to gaily smile into her peripheral vision as she checked her mobile and purse were in their usual compartments. In stockinged feet, she fled the kitchen, turning the light off with a swift, instinctive flick of her wrist. At the front door she pulled on a pair of brown flatbacks and glanced up the stairs into the darkness. The kids had set their alarms for college and school, and she'd ring them at half-past seven from work. They had no excuses for sleeping in. And yes, she'd put their packed lunches in the fridge. Go!

The sudden rush of cold air sharpened her headache as she flew down the slightly slippery garden path towards her car. Under the glow of the streetlight by the gate, the early autumn frost glinted on the pavement as if - to Cathy's mind - thousands of jewels had been magically cast in her path. A sign she'd finally be Michael's princess and escape this rotten merry-go-round.

Cathy worked in the QA department of a multinational manufacturer of confectionary. The enormous, lucrative operation both eased and exploited the town's above-average unemployment by providing family men and women with low-paid work that, no matter what their menial roles, played some part in moulding jelly into kid-friendly shapes and brightly packaging them so the youngest generation were tempted with repeated sugar-hits. Michael, whose family owned the factory before foreign competitors swooped on the stock market, had remained a director despite years of rumours concerning backroom plots to oust him. Cathy sometimes saw her brave love escorting important clients or estimable bosses from overseas around. They were people born wealthy - no one ever rose through the ranks - and they exuded complete confidence in their abilities and power. In the name of economics or discipline, they wielded axes through curt memos with such natural fluency that, whenever they boldly strolled into a department - all crooked, pensive brows and explanatory or questioning hand gestures - the workers silently shrunk inside themselves as if wishing to resemble indispensable machine components.

To have a man with such presence and the fortitude to defeat powerful foes made Cathy burn with pride, but, of course, she could never acknowledge Michael on the shop floor except to mutter 'hello' in the automated subservience to which all the VIP's were accustomed. Today, in all her jumpy expectation, Cathy felt that her gift for keeping the pretence up might abandon her, if their paths crossed. For that reason she'd only worked sporadically, ineffectively, in her cramped open plan office tucked away in a corner of a vast room behind a bulky, clattering machine that wrapped jelly farmyard animals in glossy, plastic film with a minimum of human help.

How would Michael respond? The question had started to drive Cathy crazy. Surely a man of his stature would see that he - they - had to put their future happiness above everything else. There'd be tearful, horrendous fights with his wife about abused trust and wasted lives that would, as the hostilities became red-hot, narrow and sharpen in focus; words would be forged into weapons with which to contest dry-eyed, acrimonious legal battles about who owned what. In light of Michael's respectful standing, the thought of public conflict particularly worried Cathy. But they could make it. Only she had to be the strong, discreet, supportive woman behind the great man. That meant they couldn't have the whole factory gossiping at such a trying, momentous time. Yes, playing it like one of the losers would make her a winner. So, for now, the scorned wife had to outplay the triumphant bride to be. If Michael and his high-fliers showed up on the shop floor, she'd simply mumble the obligatory greetings, business as usual. She wouldn't even pull a sour face at the workers' spiteful criticism of her man's entourage as they walked away. The workers' cowardice made her sick. It was easy for any shoddy bigmouth to take Michael to task when he wasn't present and able to defend himself. Why didn't they understand that the others were the heartless fat cats? Michael could be extremely charitable and, left to him, the company would be far more generous, he'd told her as much. Oh, why bother with such trivialities? She'd have to break the real news over the exquisite meal he'd planned that night somewhere wonderful in Leeds. The thought of it terrified her. What would she do if it went wrong?

'Bugger!' She was making such a pig's ear of the simplest data input, and that meant earache from up above when the numbers didn't tally. Nothing else for it, she'd have to start again. The boredom and the draining, unsociable hours were a curse on her quality of life, but it was the effect on her self-esteem that Cathy especially loathed about her job. A stunning creature like her looking out for imperfections on stupid jelly shapes that rotted kids' teeth or turned them into buzzing pests or whiny blobs! The professional, airbrushed photos of models compared unfavourably to a snapshot of her taken on a basic mobile phone. If this is all there is to life, she thought to herself for the ten thousandth time, then it's understandable why some women stick their heads in ovens or guzzle handfuls of pills. Not that she was unstable and could ever go that way.

Cathy shared her office with Kevin and Jessie. The latter - a backstabbing cow and an irreplaceable friend in equal measure - had been summoned upstairs after a five year old had found a bolt from one of the packing machines in a bag of edible Teddy Bears. 'Choke the little rats. One sure-fire cure for childhood obesity,' Jessie had quipped as she left to explain how a metal detector had gone down undetected on her watch. Podgy, balding Kevin - married with two nippers, a bit of a football bore and yet nice in his stiff collar way - was unaccustomed to hearing Cathy use any variant of the b, f or c words. 'Trouble?' he asked, after stopping typing and looking up from his computer screen.

'I don't know, Kevin,' Cathy sighed. 'It's just, you know, another of those days.'

His black moustache twitched when their eyes met across the room. Jessie called him Caterpillar Lip when he was out of earshot. 'You should have taken some time off on the sick to get over it,' he said.

Cathy had told everyone she'd split with Ian because they'd gradually grown apart, and it was all they were getting. Keep the story simple and straight and she couldn't get confused and blow her cover. 'Perhaps you're right. Yet here I am.'

'Tell you what, take it easy today. I'll key that stuff in for you. You go take a steady stroll round production to check the weights. It needs doing.'

'Would you? You're so kind. I'm really not with it with everything that's going off.'

'I bet you're not.' Kevin squinted at his screen.

Cathy got her white smock from the locker in the corner of the sparse office. She put her arms into its sleeves, fastened the studs up the front, and pulled on a blue hairnet. Through the window, two-storeys down, on the dual carriage that skirted the town centre, traffic zipped by, going places. It was hours until the end of the shift. And Cathy longed for real freedom.

'Don't let the men get you down.'

'Oh, I won't.' Cathy was relieved Kevin had suggested touring production, which was mostly staffed by men, as opposed to the packing area, mostly staffed by women. Bored with their work, they could be evil bitches, and Cathy's charms worked exclusively on the other half of the human race.

To Cathy's ears each of the thirteen production machines sounded like a slow, rickety train transporting a troupe of mindless drummers - BOOM, CHA, CHA, BOOM, CHA, CHA - to nowhere, which is exactly where the men who operated the machines had arrived the second they signed a contract to work for peanuts in a sweltering, banal, dusty environment. The thick, white dust was actually food starch, used to create jelly moulds in trays. Every morning, when the production machines had been running for just a few minutes, every surface in the whole production area was layered with the fireless, ashy soot. 'Can't be any good for your lungs,' a few newcomers would observe, 'no matter what they say during your induction.'

'Just don't tell them you're asthmatic or you'll be sacked,' old hands would reply.

A night shift was employed to clean up the starch so the production cycle could tidily recommence at six am. It must obliterate a sentient man's self-image, Cathy always thought, even though the job had to be done for the place to remain remotely hygienic. Everything had a funny smell, and nothing reeked quite as bad as the huge vats of boiling, unset jelly - a dirty giant might have stuffed his fusty socks and his pissy pants into them. Really, absolutely disgusting! And how demeaning, then, Cathy reflected, for the night shift to spend the eight hours that the civilised world slept down on their knees with hand brushes, shovels, and waste-sacks. Not much better than sweeping chimneys in the days Queen Victoria ruled half the world!

Four men worked each computerised machine; an operator, his back-up, the driver of an electric trolley, and a poor sucker who sat at a conveyor belt, perspiring, trying not to nod off so he could pick out any crap mixed up in the set jellies. Michael had proudly told Cathy the latest production machines were marvels of modern engineering, and, as he'd watched over their installation, she hadn't liked to contradict him. In all honesty, the sight of the elongated, angular, metallic beasts and their grinding, revolving chains, rumbling, rolling conveyors, pushing, pulling and rattling carriages and rails, and their stinking, overspilling hoppers mostly probed the dark, squeamish side of Cathy's imagination, rousing mental flashes of trapped fingers, burnt skin and crushed ankles. Not that serious accidents regularly occurred, but her kids would never work at the factory just as they were forbidden to eat the muck it chucked out. The sooty chimneys of yesteryear might have gone, but there are still ways to pollute people, don't you know?

Day in, day out, the electric trolley men drove to the rhythm of the machines, feeding them pallets of set jelly at one end, relieving them of pallets of unset jelly at the other end, and frequently joking or quarrelling with the operators to prevent their minds from melting down. The hardest thing about the job, so some said, was preventing yourself from turning into a gibbering, fleshy appendage of hi-tech machinery. 'They want robots not people,' they'd carp. The operators would sometimes stand about flicking switches on the control panel, touching the computer screen and then scratching their arses; just as often they ran hither and thither completing tedious manual jobs that assured the supply of jelly from the kitchens didn't run out or the trays of jelly in starch didn't messily jam up the machine. In this way product and profit was churned out from the minute the morning shift started right up to the close of the afternoon shift.

It was a soul-destroying travesty for all but the most bovine and the bigwigs, and especially for the men with intelligence. One of the younger truck drivers had a degree in archaeology but had never been able to find a relevant position. Likewise the oddball with a First in English who could talk rings round the supervisors and was a marked troublemaker. The first mistake he made, he'd be out. 'All that education so they can help us lot to get kids fat,' their workmates would scornfully remark. 'Mine aren't going to university \- what a waste of time! Does anybody understand the loony who spends his breaks with his head in books? Yesterday he started going on about bloody reification, whatever that means. I ask you!'

Though the men begrudged their lot, they were convinced there was nothing else for them, and, as one or two conservative voices occasionally said, 'It's a job and the conditions are a damn sight better than they were back in the day for folk like us. Just think about living then!' It was, to all but a few, and to all intents and purposes, a form of institutionalisation. The jingle of the company's TV advertisements made a couple of idiots sit up to attention in their homes.

Cathy's job on a round of the factory wasn't quite so monotonous, if only because she wasn't expected to transform into an attachment of one specific machine. She selected ten sweets from the thousands that endlessly dropped onto a conveyor from a revolving drum in which animal fat made them shine, visually inspected and weighed them to ensure they'd correctly moulded, and put a tick in a box on a form. If the jelly shapes were malformed, she phoned the packing area on the other end of the conveyor and instructed the packing workers to store the sweets with a red ticket until a boss decided what to do. Cathy then examined a sieve on the end of a pipe that carried the jelly from the smelly, sweaty kitchens on another floor. If the sieve was picking out impurities, she put a tick in another box, and if it appeared to be damaged, she phoned for a replacement. Health and Safety were paramount to the operation so far as the product was concerned - the management were obsessed with disgruntled consumers' potential to sue - but, while the workers' breaks conformed to government guidelines and were just long enough to stop most heads combusting, there were explosive incidents, nod, wink, that were swept under piles of the white soot. After a year of working in the place many men had resorted to communicating solely through abuse or brute sarcasm, taking less and less interest in anything that requires much thought. And the atmosphere had a nastier edge now a medley of foreign accents resonated in the place, as if the immigrant workers were to blame for populating the same dung heap.

Even if they knew where to draw the line to preserve their jobs, the bored, impotent machine operators' lusty stares and smutty comments galled Cathy intensely. Though she knew how to manipulate them, she shouldn't have to put up with it in this day and age! Could anybody blame her for wanting to escape? Wait while they found out she was to become the second wife of Michael Williams!

Cathy's round of the machines passed without incident until she was ticking the last box in the last production room. 'How are you today, sexy?' Ronnie Reynolds compensated for his Oompa-Loompa physique by puffing out his chest and boasting about enough fictitious sexploits to provide the porn industry with storylines for a year.

'I'm fine, sweetie.' Cathy's beaming smile hadn't illuminated the diminutive lecher's face; he was staring elsewhere.

'I bumped into Ian in the club at the weekend,' he said, matter-of-fact, finally looking up. 'The lad was what you might call devastated.'

'I'm very sorry about it, too, Ronnie. Unfortunately these things happen.'

'They sure do.' Ronnie licked his lips. 'Speaking of fortune, who's the jammy sod?' He treated her to one of his steamy winks, absolutely ridiculous - so Cathy thought - coming from a dinky stooge Willy Wonka would reject. Ronnie's prune-like complexion, blue hairnet and blue and white gingham overalls made him look too outlandishly inhuman.

'I'm not sure I follow you.' She cupped a hand to her ear as if the machine's racket had prevented her from hearing.

'You know, your fancy man.'

'Can we keep anything that my husband has told you while under the influence,' she said huskily, jiggling her boobs, 'under our hairnets, please?'

'My lips are sealed, darling.' Ronnie winked again.

'Thank you ever so much. I must be getting on.'

It was such a stroke of luck that Ian had been too stunned to demand information from Alicia and she'd only revealed Michael's Christian name. The whole factory would be guessing, but - phew! - that's all!

As Cathy hastened towards the exit at the far end of the starchy room, Ronnie turned to his back-up, Andy Rogers, who'd hid, quietly laughing behind his hands, on the other side of the machine's control panel. 'What I'd give to be in Tricky Micky's skin for a few hours so I could roll around with that.'

Cathy sat alone at a table in a corner of the canteen, the furthest from the vending machines and food counter, presently unstaffed because no one wanted to be served. It was always the quietest time to take lunch; just two male workers were also eating at a table midway between Cathy and the deserted counter. They talked in subdued spurts between bites of their sandwiches while studying their newspapers' horseracing sections. The youngest of the pair, a spotty beanpole with a beak-like hooter, kept sneakily glancing over. Cathy recognised the usual desire; if the young man had heard any rumours, they weren't as interesting to him as his twitchy pecker.

Cathy had just removed the cellophane from her tuna sandwich when Josephine - an old-timer practised in the darkest arts of scandalmongering - awkwardly waddled in her direction carrying a battered lunchbox and a plastic cup of tea. Josephine had served the factory since she was a teenager, had never been considered for promotion, and worked best as a health-warning against sugary treats. Having scoffed the factory's wares every shift for years, her body had collapsed into a humongous glob; she had sickly, watery eyes, black, wonky teeth and grey whiskers wildly sprouting from the warts on her cheeks and chin.

Cathy's unwanted guest carefully placed her tray on the table and sat down, hoarsely sucking in each breath.

'Are you ok, Josephine?'

'Don't fuss me.'

On just about recovering, a minute or so later, Josephine produced a corned beef sandwich from her lunchbox and sank her rotten chompers into it. 'I remember when my husband left me,' she said through a mouthful and with a frankness that made Cathy blush. 'I swore I'd never marry again, and I've kept my word. They're nothing but greedy bleeders with their other women.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Cathy, squirming.

'There's no need to be sorry - I was happier when I got used to being alone.'

'I'm, erm, pleased for you.'

'What was it with your rat? A bit on the side? Booze?'

'Nothing so sensational,' Cathy replied, flustered. She glanced over to the door in the hope someone might come in and rescue her by changing the subject, if not by setting off the fire alarm. At least the two male workers had their heads in their newspapers and didn't seem to be earwigging. 'We'd grown apart.'

'There's usually more to it than that, love.'

Cathy put down her un-nibbled sandwich.

'Lost your appetite, love?' Josephine unwrapped a chocolate bar. 'There's no point going to pieces over any man.' She paused; her watery eyes swept Cathy's face searching for a reaction. As if to take away the disappointing taste of Cathy's pretty blankness, Josephine snapped off three sections of chocolate with one bite. 'I wanted you to know, love,' she went on, her teeth coated with gooey brown, 'that you can always cry on the shoulder of this old woman.'

'My two young ones,' Cathy replied with haughty restraint, her chair scraping on the floor in her hurry to get to her feet, 'will keep me occupied. You'll have to excuse me - I've got to get back to work.'

'Don't forget your purse. Remember what I've said.'

'Thanks.' But if the lousy, decaying mongrel wanted a juicy tale, she'd have to sniff, dig and wag her tail elsewhere. Cathy smiled grimly as she strode to the exit - Josephine knew less than Ronnie. Maybe she'd underrated that little creep, and he was capable of keeping his trap shut. Should he know more than he was letting on, then he was probably scared of being seen as the source of a rumour that attacked a boss. Cathy's pace quickened down the whitewashed corridor that led to the shop floor; her spirits had suddenly lifted. Everything was going to work out and it wouldn't be long now. They could gossip like washerwomen who'd all swigged a bottle of flat ale too many when she was a lady of leisure, sipping Pimm's.

Cathy was reassured to find the house peaceful and in one piece, despite Alicia's glittery pink hairbrush with dead golden strands being too close to a lidless tub of spread on the worktop. Suppressing yawns, Cathy wiped up the crumbs and a few beads of jam that had spilled onto the kitchen table. She splashed hot, soapy water over a couple of plates and coffee mugs, and put them and Alicia's brush where they belonged. She binned the spread when she found the tub's lid had slipped to the floor under the kitchen table.

By the time the kids got in, depending on whether they'd made plans through the day, she might be out. On the worktop she left two fivers and a note directing them to the fish and chip shop for tea.

The past days \- combined with her early start - had taken it out of Cathy and it crossed her mind that fatigue threatened to spoil her crucial date. In her room, she got into her silky, lilac jim-jams and set her alarm; if she felt she could snooze like the sleeping beauty, she'd have to make do with an hour. Snuggling under the soft duvet, the mattress gently sinking, Cathy closed her eyes...

How magical it was to be a little girl riding a beautiful snowy unicorn round and round on a carousel on which was exquisitely, masterfully painted, in bold, bright colours, every wild flower imaginable! Their stems and ornate foliage intertwined, vibrant shades of green flowing around each other, almost hugging, as if Mother Nature was demonstrating her love. And what charming, graceful music! The carousel was in a lush, rolling meadow with daisies and buttercups and distant, craggy mountains capped with snow on every horizon. Young Cathy guessed it might be a secret place only known to a select, special few. The sun warmly caressed her pale, bare arms as she clung to the unicorn's stiff horn as it glided round and round on the carousel's outer lane. 'Look Mum! Look Dad!' Cathy called excitedly. 'We might fly!' But as she looked around she discovered she was alone. The ride ground to a halt and the music discordantly slowed to silence, as if a mechanism had jerkily unwound. No one appeared to be operating the carousel or collecting fares. Climbing down from her beautiful mount, Cathy cautiously descended the few steps to the grassy meadow only - in a blink - it had turned to silvery, smooth ice...

A mirror! Looking up, Cathy found herself in a vast, gloomy maze of mirrors that reflected her naked womanly image back and forth until it was replicated a thousand times and more. Who had moved the mountains? Spinning round in confusion, Cathy lost sight of her original likeness. And who was that? Distant, echoing voices urged her to run, turn this way, get away, come, come, quickly! But Cathy was afraid of fleeing in case her momentum broke a floor mirror and she cut her feet, for the floor and the ceiling were constructed of mirrors. 'What's the danger?' she called, her voice turning to an echo. She was trapped in a labyrinth of her own reflections.

The other voices intensified, move, move, run, and in panic she found herself in full flow, gliding over the mirrors, and yet, no matter how fast and obediently she ran, she was always misdirected, lost among another thousand reflections. Panting, sick of the useless, bewildering commands, she closed her eyes to rest... What? Was that Ian? And then her father? Could their - these - voices be trusted? The echoes from afar seemed to merge, become clearer, louder, nearer, until they became one, and recognisable: Michael's urbane tones begged her to move. 'Is that really you?' Cathy called out. Down the corridors her echoing voice slowly diminished to nothing. Goosebumps formed on her naked flesh and she shivered; suddenly it was extremely cold. Snow fell through the ceiling mirrors and settled on the floor, covering up the reflection of her legs, her hips, her breasts, beneath her. Down on her haunches, Cathy ran her fingers through the snow and was startled by its warmth, which now spread through her toes. Ash? A fire? Though she couldn't smell smoke, she knew above all else she had to get away.

In no time, she had turned onto the longest mirrored corridor she had yet encountered. In the mirror at the very end, she spied a clothed reflection. Incredibly, no one stood before the mirror! Cathy vigilantly edged forwards until her heart jumped! Mother! Slipping and sliding on the smooth mirrors, Cathy hurtled towards this... this... mirage? Why didn't her mother show any sign that she recognised her only daughter? Cathy stopped in her tracks, frightened of both false hope and of perturbing her mother, who she had missed so terribly. The older woman continued to stare ahead as if - now Cathy was so close - looking beyond her daughter. Cathy had to speak to her! Fighting her impulse to run, Cathy tentatively moved, troubled by her mother's aloof stare. Just a few steps away, Cathy held out her hands, 'It's me, Mother, hold me!' Mother's eyes flickered; she benignly smiled and reached out to her girl. Their fingers met. Her mother's hands, cold as a tomb, gently pulled Cathy's fingers towards the mirror. They went through its surface as if it was water miraculously defying gravity. Matching her mother's rippled, beatific gaze, Cathy went through the mirror to meet her on the other side. A dazzling light flashed. Cathy had escaped the maze into a familiar room fragranced with lavender. 'Mother?' Searching around the room, Cathy's gaze settled on her alarm clock. It was due to go off in five minutes. She had stepped back into reality...

Did the dream mean anything? Until her mother had helped her, Cathy had sensed that she was condemned to imprisonment. A thought like a cruel slap caused her to fall back into her pillow. She had been so accustomed to looking dreamily ahead and thinking of Michael as her eventual means of escape, now the time to run had come, a most significant detail loomed like a landslide across her path. She was his mistress! How could she ever hope that he loved her the most? She despondently stared at the ceiling, thankful that it didn't reflect her expression. 'I'll just lie here and wait to die!' she resentfully exclaimed, hitting the mattress with the balls of her fists.

Cathy was not one to feel sorry for herself for long. If Michael had lied to her, shouldn't she fight for something? Forget this romance nonsense, she should take a leaf from Alicia's book and make him pay! Her anger felt wrong. Why did she keep on doubting Michael? Had he ever let her down? Shouldn't he be given the chance to prove that he wanted her? 'I'm beautiful', she declared. 'What man doesn't want a woman like me?' How could his wife compare? Cathy slipped from under her duvet and out of her nightwear. She admired her naked self in her full-length mirror. It had only been a dream.

One hour and a quarter later and Cathy transformed stood reflected. Her work was immaculate. Her long, blond tresses were pure, shiny silk, elegantly resting on and cascading off her slender shoulders down to, and beyond, the plunging neckline of her sleek, black, knee-length dress. It teasingly hugged the toned curves of her delicately tanned figure. Cathy smiled sunshine pearls, recalling that the shop assistant had enviously complimented her, 'You'd look fabulous in a tatty grey sack'. But there was no need to play at Cinderella tonight. It had taken all of Sunday afternoon to find the right thing, and wasn't Cathy so glad she'd persevered. The sharp, lively gleam had returned to her big, tantalising, emerald eyes; her fleshy, red lips parted in a smile of mysterious promises. Wouldn't her perfume of summery wildflowers turn the shyest man's head, rousing his deepest, innate desires? It wasn't conceit or vanity, or at least no more than that of other mortals who have been blessed with such looks; if life had taught Cathy one thing, it was to make the most of what she'd got in order to get what she wanted. And she fully intended to flourish now Ian was out of the way. She pirouetted, looking over her shoulder and into the mirror to be certain her stockings hadn't laddered. She felt unstoppable.

Cathy carried her black high heels with the glittery bows down the stairs. As she was pulling on her left shoe in the hall, the front door opened and Davie entered, his school tie trailing from his grey Nike hoodie's pocket, his backpack slung over his shoulder. 'Going out again?' he asked in such a rush that by the time she had both feet on the floor he'd already disappeared into the living room.

'What are you doing with your shoes on in there, Davie?'

'I'll take them off.'

'Do it now, and bring them out here and put them on the rack.'

'I've put them in my bag.'

'Do they belong there?'

'In a minute.'

'Oh no...' But she didn't have the time for a pantomime confrontation. 'There's some money in the kitchen for the fish and chip shop.' She heard the TV turn on. Davie skimmed through the channels. 'And don't spend all your time in front of that thing or the computer. I'm sure you've homework to do. Do you hear me?' A taxi hooted. 'Tell Alicia...' Oh, what's the point?

Cathy spotted Michael's red Ferrari Enzo in the car park of the motel tucked away on the edge of town as soon as her taxi swung off the main road. He was - as much as is possible in such a motor - inconspicuously parked between a sizeable white van and the tall hedgerow in the corner the furthest from reception, not that anyone was noseying around under such a bulging, soggy, grey sky. It's a miracle the rain is holding off, Cathy thought, experiencing once again that giddy angst that had troubled her initial transgressions. The chubby, unkempt, balding driver, whose clammy armpits had disgustingly done battle with her perfume for prominence in the cab, took her fare while laconically grunting into his headset; some kind of dispute with HQ about early shifts had lasted throughout Cathy's ten minute ordeal. Conscious of her audience across the car park, Cathy slowly swivelled on her bum and slid her long legs out of the rear door. Drawing upright, she smoothed down her dress and then stood around speaking to no one over her mobile while the taxi reversed and pulled onto the highway. Good riddance! She daintily dropped her phone in her petite handbag.

Taking her first steps towards Michael's motor, swaying her hips, a sudden cold breeze whipped the muddied, torn cover of a tabloid across her path. In the second that she halted and waited for it to blow away, she envisioned a photograph of Ian and the kids as if their story had crashed into the headlines. What had she done? Only what she had to do for her own well-being. She was innocent. Skirting between the parked motors, she smiled effusively when she was close enough to be sure Michael was examining her through his tinted windscreen.

He kissed his fingertips and softly touched them against her cheek so as not to smudge her makeup. 'I'm so glad to see you again,' she said moonily, relishing his strong, musky aftershave. 'It feels like ages...'

'Far too long, my little cherub. Trust me, tonight we shall compensate for it. I see that my little head-turning princess is more than suitably attired to grace one of the finest restaurants in the north of England.'

'Thank you!'

'Belt yourself in, and away we go.'

'So you've missed me?' She pouted demurely.

'It's been unbearable.'

'Really?'

'You were always on my mind and always out of reach.'

'Love can be such a trial. Hearts have to beat true and strong to endure.' She could imagine speaking to only Michael in such a manner, as if the defences she had built up to deal with crude, everyday encounters melted away, became utterly superfluous in his company. Sometimes - and it now appeared in sharper focus because she was painfully alert in light of the extraordinary news she had to break - their conversations seemed to be scripted. In her darker moments she had wondered if they were too eager to play the roles of Hollywood heroine and hero, but, she would tell herself when her lightness returned, it was different with Michael because their relationship was like no other. A one-off affair in a million lifetimes. Something worthy of films or literature. And how else could the few lucky people chosen for such a fate express themselves? They've just the same words that are constantly tainted by billions of worthless imitations of the real thing.

'Do you love me, Michael? I mean with all your heart.' She couldn't help herself. Nor could he:

'More than life itself. It pains me that you have to ask so timidly, my little cherub,' he said with grave sincerity, taking his eyes off the rear end of the grimy truck ahead of them so he could glance into her yearning, emerald jewels. Some coarse animal had fingered 'fuck you' into the muck on the trucks' rear door, but it only served to highlight that they existed on another world. 'Shouldn't you know what you mean to me by now, my darling?'

Cathy shimmered with delight. 'I should know, and I do know. It's just that I've, oh, I must be patient - we've waited so long that another hour won't make any difference. I don't want you spinning off the road in surprise. What a disaster that would be when this opportunity - there I go again, getting ahead of myself. Darling, I've something to tell you but it will wait.'

'You intrigue me, my little cherub, but if you insist.'

He overtook the truck and then a coach load of school kids, some of whom enthusiastically pointed at the slick, powerful motor and, she imagined, the ravishing princess in the passenger seat.

'I must say - to put your mind at rest - if you've money problems, consider them solved.'

'That's incredibly generous, Michael, but it concerns the affair of our hearts. I wish I hadn't said anything. Not yet.'

'A man of my calibre copes with any obstacle life puts in his way. Haven't I always told you that?'

'I've every faith that you'll continue to do so. It isn't an obstacle, however, rather that an obstacle has... Oh, everything will be fabulous!'

'That's the spirit, my cherub. We haven't any problems. Let's get to the restaurant and enjoy our precious moments.' He put his foot down, pulling away from a hen party having a sing-song in a black and white minibus.

'Such a pleasure!' Cathy squealed.

'It's all mine.'

Dense black clouds glowered across the horizon and the concrete sprawl of Leeds as they left the motorway on their approach to the city. 'How beautiful!' she cried when a fork of lightning seemed to flash between two of the highest tower blocks, one of which had a sloping escarpment from the ground to its middle floors, creating the impression of a giant, angular Dalek scouring the streets below for victims. 'And here's the big drums to announce our imminent arrival!' he laughed as thunder rumbled and rolled across the sky.

'So spellbindingly romantic, darling.' Soon they'd be free to do as they pleased in the anonymity of the city. Always such a luxury! 'It could only happen for us,' she crowed, as if they were the sole travellers on the road. As if anyone else would associate the stormy scene with romance.

Michael chaperoned Cathy from his car to the restaurant's entrance under the protection of his black umbrella. Big raindrops beat against it, dripping down the sides into shallow, newly formed puddles. He'd lay his jacket across them if it was necessary, what a dear, well-bred gent!

To Cathy's delectation their table was by a window overlooking the slow, olive river, why, it was murky only because of the poor light! It took a genuine lover to think on to insist on such seating! The modern, fashionable penthouses that towered over the river's ancient, grey, stone banks were reflected in the water's surface that showed off such adorable, pretty, circular patterns in the downpour. The cold rain lashed against the restaurant's windows as if to stress the cosiness inside. 'This is so enchanting. So us, Michael.'

'They've so chicly, finely balanced the art deco style with contemporary spaciousness,' he replied, agreeably.

She looked around, her wide eyes drinking in the lovely, vibrant, flamboyant prints that adorned the walls. Could she find a favourite? There were so many to choose from! But yes! Look at that amazing depiction of a lithe, crimped blond in a sinuous, white dress, leaning on a piano and holding a glass of red wine to her lips. With slicked black hair, a pencil moustache and a stylish dinner jacket, her lover lit a cigarette by her side. Not that smoking was Cathy's thing in the here and now, but it used to epitomise cool. 'It's like being transported to the roaring twenties. Captivating!'

They agreed to bypass starters and go straight to the main course. Cathy was on her third glass of the house red by the time the waiter brought her salmon and roasted vegetables to the table. Michael had decided on something exotically unpronounceable but visually redolent of beef stew. She was partly annoyed, partly relieved, that he hadn't jumped in and asked about her news, but then, her Michael would pick an ideal moment. As they picked up their cutlery, he began to relate his pet anecdote about outwitting a pompous business rival. No matter how many times Cathy had heard it, she had never failed to be impressed. To think, so many women had never comprehended the joys of the company of a man who knows how to conduct himself in the world. They too easily settle for the fools who tricked them into accepting rings when they were naïve babies. And it wasn't just Michael's business prowess, he breathed culture. He'd often exhilarated Cathy by spontaneously reciting poetry. If she didn't always 'get it', she appreciated the thought, for, as they say, it is the thought that counts. But much finer than obscure, rhyming words, Michael could critique art! The previous summer, somehow, they'd managed to get away to the capital for a weekend. He'd escorted her around the Tate on the Saturday afternoon and his interpretations of Picasso were so staggeringly inspirational she bought a book on the subject later in the week, after they'd returned. The book's author, of course, had entirely different views, which goes to show that the so-called experts can get their portraits confused with the sight and sound of their backsides. Cathy had to confess she still believed the man who painted those lovely, soft, blurry pastels - what was his name? - was the greatest artist... But such talk was for another night. Even Michael's witty portrayal of his sweetest-tasting business conquest was overshadowed by her memory of their meeting on her first day at the factory, a couple of years previous.

Surely it was a favourable sign that Michael had immediately asked her out? He must have treasured her on first sight. He'd often said as much. Of course, she'd declined his offer. Back then she was still bound by the ideal of loyalty in marriage, even though, in retrospect, it had started to crumble long before Michael suavely put himself in her picture. Ian simply hadn't turned out to be the man she thought she'd met. Five years her senior, he'd seemed so earnestly manly when she was sweet sixteen. As she grew into her twenties, however, she'd slowly, painfully, realised her error. Ian might be handsome, but he had nothing else to offer. Like a stripped male mannequin in a skip on waste ground following the demolition of a dingy row of shops. And a girl like her could have had the pick of the best! Michael had been so gracious when she'd turned him down that she'd felt - despite swearing to remain true to her vows, despite her daughter and son, despite the ring on Michael's finger - a cutting pang of regret.

He determined to win her over as soon as they met socially, a retirement do for dozy, plump, good-humoured Mrs Brown who had spent her entire working life on the shop floor. Michael gave a resounding speech on Mrs Brown's many talents, which he knew more about than she or anyone else did, before presenting the doddering dear with a carriage clock and fifty pounds worth of gift vouchers for Marks & Sparks. 'What tight arses they are,' Jessie whispered, 'after the poor cow has given them so much of her time.'

'I thought it was a lovely presentation,' Cathy said, turning up her nose and marching off to the toilets.

Michael, moving fast, cornered Cathy by the cigarette machine in the foyer when she emerged from the ladies. 'You're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen,' he said, winding up his second great speech of the evening, which had mostly sailed over Cathy's head because she was coping with feeling so girlishly funny.

'That's all very well, but you're married,' she stoically maintained, refusing to meet his imploring gaze.

'I should never have proposed to her. She's an academic bore. All lecture room, no life; she might as well sleep with the education system. I want to enjoy my time with a special person. I want to be with you.'

At last looking into his eyes, Cathy perceived his compelling magnetism, oh, he was so urbane and, frankly, he could back up his big talk with hard cash. If only they'd met years ago. She continued to shrug off his advances with the cynical wit all women develop to varying degrees in order to put their suitors down and keep them at arm's length. Yet Michael understood persistence would exhaust her supply of one-liners, after which she'd be exposed and vulnerable to flattery, which would get him everywhere. Shortly, she agreed to meet up for one drink - and only one drink - the following Wednesday. Any doubts she had about a married man who was ten years her senior vanished when he presented her with red roses, Belgian chocolates and a wonderful recital of Shakespeare. She was comparable to the finest summer's day, something that her husband had forgotten in his bleak, emotionless winter of mundane practicalities. Her story demanded a happy ending! Why else had she been born so gorgeous? She was worth it! Even tonight, pouring out her first glass of wine, the waiter had commented that she and Michael made the most attractive couple and, yes, waiters have to say such things, but sometimes they are true. She so loved being with Michael; she could dream and he had the power to make reality. They should go on cruises and do all those things like sharing foreign sunsets and making love, lingeringly, in five-star hotels. Why couldn't life be like a centre-spread or the most scintillating chapter? Only his wife stood in their way.

'Now, my little cherub,' Michael said softly, noting Cathy had barely smiled at the hilarious twists of his story. 'What's our little problem?' He sipped his Perrier water, hoping she hadn't had too much of the red stuff, which wasn't unknown. She'd worn a strange, if serene, expression since they'd ordered their food.

'I know you're a man who'll honour his word, not that there are many of your type left in the world...'

'Absolutely.'

'... So I shouldn't have fretted.'

'I'm sure it's only a matter of my usual alchemy, so we can head back to your place for a night cap without any worries. Davie's out? Ian's at work?'

'I was expecting you to have heard.'

'What?' He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his hands together as if he'd pray if he had to. Cathy winced as she caught sight of his ring. 'Come on, cherub, out with it.'

'Ian's lost his job. We...'

'Of course,' Michael said softly. 'I should have thought on that he worked there. I've been under so much pressure this week. So that's our problem. We can't let our hair down at your place until he finds employment in tricky times. Easily remedied; I'll fix him a position on the opposite shift to you. All you have to do is say that you pulled the strings of a woman in HR.' He smiled winningly.

'I'm afraid it's more complicated than that.'

'Go on,' he said with a part-fascinated, part-wary drawl.

'Right away?'

'Certainly.'

He leaned back in his chair, fidgeting with the ring on his finger, avoiding Cathy's anxious, darting eyes while she stopped and started and then spluttering, told him of the consequences of Alicia's outburst.

'You know that I don't drink when I'm driving,' he said when Cathy had finished. 'On such a special, special day I'm sure I can be forgiven for savouring my favourite tipple. We've often discussed moving on and, at last, our moment is here.' He grinned affectionately and leaning towards Cathy urgently whispered, 'Carpe diem!' Sitting up, he raised his hand, 'Waiter, a large brandy. Cathy, my little cherub, we deserve everything that is coming our way.'

She knew she could depend on Michael! And it was all a result of the iron resolve of her darling babe, Alicia. Cathy could have cried, except it wouldn't do in public - people would assume Michael had been a beast. Still beside herself with apprehension and awe, she forced herself to be bubbly, fun-loving, enthusing about everything they might do now the future was theirs. Yes, now she felt better! Michael, sipping his drink, swishing his glass round and round, became intoxicated with plans. To hell with the rat race! Their time was priceless. He'd retire and visit the wonders of the world. Bless his sweet soul!

They left the restaurant arm-in-arm. To Cathy's immense satisfaction the sky had cleared. She didn't mind the bite in the air now she had her man. Its freshness was so appropriate for a new start. Her goosebumps would disappear when Michael put the heating on in his exquisite car. 'Don't you love looking up at the stars?' she purred.

'Most of them died millions of years ago. And look, a full moon.'

'Oh,' she said, uneasily. 'I thought...'

'I prefer looking into my darling's eyes.'

'Michael, you're such a... poet.'

'To our chariot, my lady.'

The downpour has cleansed the city, thought Cathy. Every surface seemed to shine so warmly, so engagingly, under the streetlights in spite of the autumn chill. People were drifting from pub to pub in search of the thing perhaps only she and Michael in the whole city possessed. She contentedly sank into her seat with conscious, wine-fuelled dreams. Jaunty, elegant, classical music played and Michael too no doubt went places as he silently drove, checking the rear-view mirror from time to time.

They pulled up at the end of the street. 'I profoundly regret that I can't come in tonight when we've so much to discuss and to celebrate. What plans and days are ahead of us! But as you've so shrewdly said, your children will need some time to get used to changes.'

'You're such a considerate man, Michael, which is just one of the many things I love about you.'

They kissed. Their eyes slammed shut like the doors to private rooms when they realised the other was watching.

'I'd better get out before a busybody spots us,' Cathy said nervously. 'Not that it really matters now. Or at least it won't matter soon. Michael, I'm unbelievably excited.'

'Goodnight, my little cherub. I shall see you very soon.'

'I'm free anytime. Thursday?'

'I'm afraid I'm taking my wife to a play. I won't tell her until the weekend.'

'A play?' Cathy felt sick with jealousy. She'd never been that way before Ian had left, but now the thought of Michael spending some time with his wife, especially after the promises they'd just made to one another... A man as sensitive as Michael was bound to harbour some affection from over the years. She'd sometimes had moments when she thought of Ian. Or the man he once was.

'Some infernal classic that my wife fawns over. She's such an 'intellectual'. Waiting for Godot. Quite ironic really, the time we've spent waiting for each other.'

'Yes,' Cathy said, looking away with teary uncertainty. His wife was an 'intellectual'? By comparison, did he think she was a bimbo? Through the window, in the light of the street lamp, the radial strands of a spider's web were visible in the privet. She shivered. 'You know what's for the best.'

'Chin up, my little cherub. I've an extremely important meeting on Friday. I don't want hell to break loose before then. Afterwards I won't care a jot. She'll go mad when I tell her.' He chuckled dryly. 'I'll enjoy telling her I've someone else.'

'You will?'

'She's the most selfish woman.'

'I shouldn't expect you to rush things,' Cathy said, brightening. 'I'm sorry.'

'Whatever for?'

'I...' She felt silly.

'Don't fret, cherub. Goodnight.' He kissed his fingertips and placed them on her cheek.

He sped off as soon as she had crossed over onto her side of the street. It perplexed Cathy, as she looked along the terraced houses and saw the glow of Davie's bedroom light, that Michael never talked to her about his daughters. Perhaps he thought she was inclined to the same selfishness that made his wife repugnant. Cathy was forever talking about her two without ever mentioning his girls, who were away at university. He must dearly love them. The next time she met him she'd make a point of showing her interest.
Chapter Three

'Get out and mind your own business.'

'It is my business,' Alicia sharply insisted, 'no thanks to you.'

In her pink pyjamas, Alicia had tiptoed barefoot over the velvety, cream carpet on the landing like a silent fuse the hand of her obsession had itched to ignite. Bang! She'd rushed Davie's bedroom door like a virulent blast to tear nerves if not hinges out. In a navy blue T-shirt and black boxer shorts, her brother hadn't so much as twitched on his swivel chair. And it was with a deadpan expression that he'd slowly spun round and tried to send his sibling on her way. Instead, her tongue insolently sparking, her arms truculently akimbo, Alicia had swept aside a pair of crumpled, inside out jeans with her left foot, usurping more of her brother's territory. Davie smirked; what a bozo! Alicia most effectively frightened her own shadow. As if evading her now, its barely perceptible legs stretched like flimsy bridges across the deep blue sea of his bedroom carpet, allowing its nebulous upper body to crawl up the sky-blue wall. It was opposite the window his chelping sister ought to take a running jump at, but which only framed midday's surprisingly clear heavens between crescent moon pattern curtains.

Her shadow's head fell short of the bottom edge of Davie's solar system poster, but Alicia's indignation was out of this world. 'Because of you thieving, cheating pirates the music and film industries have less money to invest in new talent. I therefore want you to explain how you expect me to get a recording contract?'

'Ahoy there, me hearty!' Davie couldn't help laughing, even if, before Alicia's outburst, he'd been dolefully thinking about Dad. 'That's all t' music me ears desires!' He flamboyantly waved his hands as if conducting an orchestra of computers playing a symphony of smooth whirring. The instrumentalists were a trim, high performance laptop on his desk along the wall from the window, and three older, chunky models balanced on various annuals for boys on his made bed. His navy quilt cover featured Mario of computer games fame.

'You're so sad, Davie. Since when did pirates go to the Royal Albert Hall or the opera?'

'It's a sea-shanty, airhead-in-a-wig.'

'My hair's natural.'

'I like how you don't deny there's nothing between your ears.'

'Stop it. Before you kill me.'

Satisfied that the last four films of this weeks' order would soon be burned onto discs, Davie slowly, pensively, spun on his revolving chair. He had a few questions for Alicia, but asking them would draw out her stay in his room, and it wasn't as if she'd give him any answers. For no real reason he started spinning faster, round and round and round. Alicia got it into her head that he was mocking her. 'Humph!' She stooped to the floor and rolled a pair of his socks into a ball. Her shot bounced off Davie's forehead. He braked against the bed with an outstretched leg. His dizziness fading, he scrutinised his impossible sister, his blue eyes lively, glinting with amusement. Though a little on the skinny side, Davie's chipper manner and unusually clear teenage complexion were suggestive of cute, loveable angelhood to those who didn't know that, ever since infanthood, he'd had a quite wicked understanding of how to infuriate Alicia, which he could now sometimes achieve just by drawing breath. Grinning like a buccaneer in a grotto of treasure, he surveyed his room: 'The good ship Davie'll continue to sail to riches where'er they may be an' anyone that don't like it will walk mi plank.'

'You are a plank, Captain Slack Sparrowlegs. Why don't you go out and make some friends or, better still, get a girlfriend to occupy your time instead of interfering with my chances? It's coming to something when a sister has to ask her brother if he cares.'

Davie bit his tongue; shouldn't a daughter care about her dad?

'Well, do you care?'

'It depends.' And why wouldn't Mum tell him where Dad was staying? 'What am I supposed to be bothered about?'

'Me! You halfwit!'

He wanted her out of his sight. 'Something isn't quite adding up, is it?' He histrionically scratched his head of bedraggled brown hair, remembering as he did so that Mum had forced some money into his hand so that he'd get it cut in the town. There are more important things, he'd thought, his two slices popping from the toaster. 'See that bookshelf in the corner?'

'You never read.'

'I read a lot of things.'

'Such as?'

'Rotten, selfish people.'

'Are you sure you're not writing your autobiography?'

'The point is,' said Davie, 'it is mine. I can do what I want with the books on the shelf because, you guessed it, they're also mine. More clues. The bed? The TV? The Xbox? The stacks of films? The wardrobe is full of my clothes. And that's because...?

'We can be sure you haven't the talent to become a comedian,' Alicia answered, scowling.

'Who's looking for laughs? Do you get the message?'

'I'll leave when you promise me you're going to stop pirating music and films.' She stepped up to the foot of the bed, crossing her arms. 'Until then, I'm staying put.'

Like mother like daughter, Alicia might be judged to have it all so far as the look of idealised femininity goes; her flowing blond locks, big, emerald eyes, devastatingly curvaceous cheekbones and shapely lips seemed to have been woven, cut, sculpted and moulded as if some deity had deemed the young girl's perfect hourglass figure should be stunningly accompanied through life. Of course, it takes more than an image, and Alicia's father had doubted whether his daughter's head was wired up when she'd refused his offer to pay for a professional portfolio that would surely, even to his sceptical mind, flabbergast every modelling agency in London. Alicia had been adamant. 'I'm a singer! There are a million pretty girls, and look what happens to so many wannabe models. Conned by sleazy men or persuaded by dirty money into starring in those vile films that the pervy boys at college bluetooth each other.'

Not that Davie considered any of it of great significance. 'Don't do promises like that. Sorry.'

'You're letting kids see eighteen certificates. Films are rated for a reason, you know.'

'Nice try. But you've watched loads of them and you've only just turned eighteen.'

'I matured earlier than most. Everybody says I'm a lovely-looking young woman.'

'Not everybody.'

'Name somebody who doesn't.'

'Me. Anyway, looking like one isn't the same as being one.'

'Please? Pretty, pretty please? I can put in a good word for you with any girl you can think of.'

'I copy a few films for friends,' he yawned, used to her scheming changes of tack. 'I do have some, even though you think you've patented popularity.'

'Let me look in your bag...' Davie was too quick for her. He snatched away his Nike holdall and dropped it to safety behind his chair. He sat tight; his arms folded and his legs spread outwards, ready to trip his sister if she came too close. Davie was confident she wouldn't directly attack his computers - the last time she'd tried such a sorry tactic, he'd sneaked into her room, delved in her washing-basket, and snapped a pair of her knickers on his mobile. She'd kept her meddling hands to herself ever since he'd threatened to hang out her dirty washing on the internet. Judging by her tears, even the thought of such humiliation hurt badly. Davie had concluded that as appalling as it might seem, sometimes in life, only low-down tricks get the desired results.

Alicia tossed her head back with the contemptuous elegance she'd copied from the gorgeous, flighty star of a classic movie and practised in her bedroom mirror. 'That's a brother's love, is it?'

'About the measure of it.'

'It's wrong!' Alicia stamped her foot.

'You know about doing the right thing?' Davie had had enough. 'Amazing! You'll know, then, that you were wrong to pretend you didn't know what Mum was up to?'

'Mum said...' - Alicia froze, her face whitening and contorting like she'd walked onto a sharp knife - '...she wouldn't tell you about that.'

'I heard you arguing when you thought I was out.'

'Well... It isn't criminal! I'll tell Mum you've been bullying me if you say anything else. It isn't my fault they've split up.' Alicia crossed her fingers behind her back, oh my god, what if Davie had heard her mother's harsh words about the money she'd taken from Michael?

He hadn't, apparently. And he couldn't stand another pointless scene about family misfortunes. He wanted to be in the know, not to be beat round the head with get-out clauses. 'The music and film industries won't go bankrupt because I download a few things. People can't always afford to pay their prices. That's where I step in and provide a service. Think about the limousines and swanky dos that you look at online. Not exactly evidence that the stars are suffering, is it? The big-timers have canny accountants. My mate's dad is always posting stuff on Facebook about tax-avoidance. Now get out!'

'I'll...' But Alicia quickly overruled bluffing Davie by letting on she'd report him to the police. Mum would make a scarier noise than any siren if Alicia so much as hinted at dropping her brother in it as well.

Davie aped Alicia's screeched 'I'll find some way to stop you!' as she retreated from his room. He could agree with his sister on one thing; she was special, certifiably so. She'd get close to celebrity only by taking up stalking in her spare time.

Alicia tearfully fled across the landing and into her room. Her vast collection of teddy bears seemed to urge her to hide. Under her duvet, she quietly sobbed at the injustice of everything. She hadn't cheated on Dad! Why should she be blamed for him moving out? How she'd always hoped that Mum and Michael would be a flash in the pan! By keeping quiet she'd given Mum every chance of coming to her senses. If she'd told Dad about Mum's secret straight away, then they'd have been finished quicker than X-factor rejects. At least, Alicia thought, my way meant Mum could have stayed with Dad without him being any the wiser and injured. She'd tried to make the best of a bad situation, and her parents had always preached about the virtues of doing that. Hadn't she suffered bad dreams, haunted by those sickening noises she'd heard when she'd walked in on Mum and her gremlin-faced bit on the side? She hated him! How she wished she hadn't told Dad that she liked Michael the most!

Alicia shed her tears in a house in the middle of an estate on the south side of town, which is, for all intents and purposes, no different to the north side. When they were built, the town's oldest streets typically sheltered colliers' families; the red brick houses stand in crooked, surly lines, relics of noxious, oppressive duties that have willingly been wiped from popular memory. Were it possible for the original occupants to learn that their damp, poky dwellings now command head-twisting prices on the housing market, they'd doubtlessly spin with shock in their graves. Some might even be tempted to rise from underground in the midnight hour to explore the strange town. Who could say what they'd make of the world they'd once hoped and struggled to better?

It is commonly said that modern technology has transformed the globe into a village, and it is perhaps some inverse parallel that it is possible to move in ever-decreasing circles in the town on a grander scale than ever before. The old terraces conspicuously, awkwardly border and merge with newer developments, the most recent of which were thrown up in no time on any spare land, and whose streets often abruptly, expectantly snake as if an adventurous, creative spirit designed them without really knowing where they might lead. Which is other red-brick terraced estates, up yonder, down yonder, roundabouts, and, of course, back to your own front door. In a place such as this it is no mystery that home is both where the heart is and where the same suffocating four walls loom.

Maybe this stewing, hideous duality of domestic content and claustrophobic restlessness goes some way to explaining a pervasive tendency to love or to hate with fierce tenacity. It manifests in a kind of social schizophrenia, which is not to be confused with conventional, gossipy two-facedness because, though often as petty, it can be that much barmier. By way of a broad example it might be said that the generally unimaginative, honest, hardworking folk carve out the gentlest, most loyal, unconditional friendships and also the most unbelievably invidious, ugly enmities; the locals can turn, and it is most often on one another rather than the other cheek or on those who should rightfully be blamed for the area's deep-rooted social ills. While it might be proposed that excessive drinking, which remains the locals' most popular escape from their clockwork routines, bears some degree of influence on the rancorous shenanigans in the fragmenting community, the culprits themselves would shout down any such suggestion. Everyone can take their booze; on pain of death will anyone dare to say otherwise. Hic.

This is a culture of simple, strong passions and uncomplicated beliefs, where everyday demands and hassles and a dearth of education going back generations - until there are no records - have wrought an underlying native character marked by scathing cynicism and soft-headed gullibility. The people buy into nothing and fall for everything. No one seems to know the way or have the will to put anything right, and if they did, their ideas would be rejected as sentimental fairy stories with big price tags. And nobody believes anything they read. Ahem.

Though scarcely an environment that bitterly evidences the great divide between the rich and the poor, and for a good reason - the better-off mostly reside in cul-de-sacs on the quieter outskirts and the rich live it up elsewhere - variations in affluence amongst the common clan are discernible with even cursory glances. The box-like gardens of less impecunious households often show off neatly trimmed lawns, hanging-baskets, flowerbeds and clipped shrubs while, against the kerbs over their creosoted fences or boundary walls, motors that range from the class of rust-buckets to polished pride and joys are parked. By contrast, the poorer houses' grotty ambience of persistent decline tends to spill over, fertilising miniature jungles whose close proximity to society is exposed by the miscellaneous, oxidising junk strewn across them; a collapsed bed frame, a bust carburettor, a burnt out grill. Grubby curtains are often drawn in the windows of such homes, keeping the little warmth in, and fuelling snide remarks from passers-by who should know better.

Nearly every street discloses some wonky balance, to a greater or lesser extent, of this hard-earned respectability and hard-faced poverty. If tourists were grabbed by a bizarre whim to take an eye-opening trip to see how it is beyond Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and Legoland, and came here, they'd quickly get lost in an anarchic diffusion of perspectives and realities - like the spray from thousands of aerosols slanting from multiple directions and creating nothing more than dripping, indecipherable graffiti - and a paradoxical, reductive struggle so entrenched it has slyly assumed to define human nature. In all but the most open, carefree or impoverished minds festers the desire to beat the neighbours while hoping they stay in the race. No Joe Soap and his missus who have grafted to pay their mortgage, or who are grafting to save up for years to get a mortgage, wants their patch or dream, more or less the same thing, to degenerate. Without dreams, what have they got?

Perhaps remembering the streets of their own towns or cities where lurks the shadowy, unknown antagonists in those despicable, unsolved crimes, our imaginary tourists might surface with overwhelming gratitude on the precinct amongst the huddle of listed buildings whose images have, along with the castle ruins, hogged the few postcards printed in honour of the ancient market settlement-cum-modern urban maze. Our tourists might - having readjusted and decided that the local accent is friendly rather than intimidating - breezily saunter past the ever-dwindling range of goods and services offered by charity shops, bookies, near empty pubs, mobile phone outlets and banks, thinking they must soon arrive. For, right here, at the antique site of commerce, the calamitous carnage of internet and hypermarket price wars can especially be witnessed. The change for the worse is all around, even if the aged, penny-watching pedestrians who shuffle along the precinct habitually grumble, 'A fiddle - it's always been the same,' before contradicting themselves with, 'Bring back the good old days' and, 'It was terrible, much worse in our day', which it still is, of course. Surely - our tourists would mutter amongst themselves - something must be here to entice us with a dash of contemporary pizzazz? Ha-har! There it is. A glossy, flimsy, concertina leaflet pushing the neon and chrome glitz of the corporate leisure complex on the edge of town.

Beautiful bods, flabby carcasses, families; they all hang out where the chain favourites want to be consumed, gut-loads of sugar and gherkin-enhanced fat, no extra charge. Here's choice! Here's steal deal meals! Here's the minimum wage! Wetherspoon's, Burger King, Chiquito's, Nando's, Frankie & Benny's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Indian buffets undercutting Chinese competition. Why not shoot each other at Laser Quest? Ski and tumble down slopes of fake snow? Bowl a strike or a turkey? Ha! You'll know you've been stuffed when you find the holes in your wallets and purses. Didn't you look closer and wonder at too many empty seats? The complex has to drag them in from miles around because the boisterous local lads and lasses have already worn the T-shirt and figure drinking away their wages is better value. Boom, boom, boom go the leisure complex's bars, drowning the ker-ching of their tills. To the locals the whole enterprise has become known as a place to avoid working at and which turned off the lights of the town's night clubs.

Punters aplenty ride up the escalator to take a trip with Cineworld to worlds of daring romance, no drugs required for hallucinations. Every fool character possesses special powers to thwart - wait for it - near inevitable disaster. Even the bad guys do it dandy and refuse to swear in front of our moms before getting gunned down. Except, of course, the computer generated monsters or weird folk with funny skin who breed in deserts. They get wasted, no questions asked. Most of the audience don't know the meaning of 'metanarrative', yet everybody thinks they know the score, and an unreliable, unshakeable, officially-sponsored reality is honed that bit more.

Regardless of the town centre's blue plaques and the leisure complex's wham-bam-we need another tenner-mam buzz, a few visitors might gladly take the unsignposted, south-easterly road out. It is one of the authentic, less indulged, unexploited pleasures to drive through the countryside and park up on the narrow pavements of a quintessential English village that peaceably rests in a valley just beyond the town's immediate horizon. The village boasts a fairly exclusive hotel, a medieval church, whitewashed stone cottages and a few mansions better hidden by the dense foliage of great trees than the poorer dwellings in the town are concealed by mucky, drawn curtains. But better than any of this, up and over a stile, through a cow field, is the fresh, thick woodland where picking flowers is forbidden and which shelters magnificent, elusive deer among the usual creatures great and small.

A slender, meandering river, populated by dace, gudgeon and perch, flows through the valley. Sometimes it gurgles and froths over the shallows' rocky beds under overhanging trees, more often it lazily serpentines left and right, running deeper, through the grasslands of the valley floor that partitions the dense woodland on each steep slope. As long as ramblers block out the thunderous zoom of traffic from the viaduct that crosses the valley at a vertigo-inducing thirty metres, the canopied footpaths through the woods are an idyll, just be mindful to step over the stuff dog-owners occasionally neglect to scoop up. But it isn't so much very different to cow-dung, anyway. Perhaps a more cultural surprise is provided by folklore and a few historians, to boot; according to it and them, this gentle landscape was the refuge of the real, more villainous, war-like Robin Hood. Not that anyone is scared they'll encounter outlaws' ghosts. Even the most credulous folk have suspicions that, at the start of the twenty-first century, there are crueller big-shot bandits around and they don't ever have to go into hiding.

But most of our imaginary visitors, after quickly satisfying their inquisitiveness, would be most thrilled to find themselves - having sped beyond the huge, blank block of a factory that churns out jelly sweets by the ton - on the carriageway that leads to the illusionary getaway of the motorway. For accelerating up the ramp onto the M62, our visitors could, if they so decided, speed along onto other roadways until they'd travelled through the north, back down through the midlands and into the south, discovering that, after thousands of years of civilisation, the big towns and cities of England are, for the many, one and the same. Only their histories differ. And despite the glut of quickly constructed retail parks bursting with the same brand names or closing down sales, and the high streets dominated by the same big banks that like to say yes under certain terms and conditions, a question might pop into our travellers' minds. What went wrong? And then maybe they'd ask the same question about home.

No such question was on young Davie's mind as he set out on the five minutes tramp through the nippy streets to the workingmen's club where, outside, he'd hand over his sports bag. With over one hundred copies of recent blockbusters and chart hits sliding around inside, it gave off repeated clicks as he paced along. Alex - a twenty-something cousin on Cathy's side of the family - had added Davie on Facebook around the time the teenager had first reproduced films for school friends. The long thread under Davie's status-of-the-day about some yet to be released DVD had struck Alex as most fascinating.

The next afternoon, Alex appeared on the doorstep in leathers, offering to treat his kid cousin - who he hadn't seen in way too long - to a pulse-racing ride out. A Yamaha 125cc ticked over in the street. Cathy took one look at it and thought she recognised death. Though Davie didn't like the look of Alex, he sensed some rip-roaring fun. Pushing beyond his mother at the door, he stepped out onto the lawn, taking a closer look at the immaculate machine on the other side of the fence.

'I'm the smartest rider, Aunty Cathy,' Alex bragged. 'I've only come off once.' He rapped his gloved knuckles on the spare white helmet he was holding, 'And there's no better protection on the market.'

'Not getting on in the first place is safer still,' Cathy replied, stiffly. 'And it's nearly time for tea. Maybe another time.'

'You ever been on one of those, kid?' Alex pointed at his bike while turning to Davie. 'They ride wilder than the girl of your dreams.'

'Sorry?' snapped Cathy.

Alex tossed Davie the spare helmet. 'Good catch. Let's hit the road and show it what we've got, kid.'

Davie tried the helmet on. Kind of like a stuffy, soft head vice but, he thought, pulling the slightly scratched visor down, he bet he looked cool in it. And that decided it. What a coup! The lads at school might see him shooting through the streets. 'We'll only be gone a short while,' he said to his mother, rushing to the gate.

'Hold your horses...'

'Ha ha! Good one, Aunty Cathy. Carts are history and we're going, too.' Alex's shaded visor concealed his wink, which wasn't quite as audacious as the removal of his L-plates ten minutes beforehand. 'Don't worry about tea. I'll get him a bite.'

'You be careful,' Cathy called, her maternal protectiveness undermined by her discomfort at not yet knowing if she'd find the family meal in the fridge or the freezer. Overtime for the stock check was compulsory. And her colleague, Jessie, had gossiped with both tongues of her two faces when they'd nipped for a coffee afterwards.

Taking the quickest route out of town, Alex zoomed down dusty country lanes, banking corners as if maintaining pole position over ghost riders in hot pursuit, crazily rising on the back wheel down straights that unexpectedly dipped away. Davie clung to his big cousin like the ride of his life was going to cost him it.

'It's pure exhilaration when you hang out with me.' Alex smirked as his shaky younger cousin dismounted. They'd pulled over at a cronky roadside burger van that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Over the stubbly, recently-harvested fields that still hoarded bales of hay, Davie spied a long row of houses that, from this distance, looked fit for a colony of ants. He couldn't name the town or the village, whatever it was.

Alex let Davie straddle the bike while they chewed greasy cheeseburgers with onions and he pitched his proposition. 'I put word out round the factory I work at and in the pubs and clubs I drink in, compile a list of the stuff people want and you, my whiz-kid cousin, do me proud with your technical abilities.'

'And I get what out of it?' Davie asked, tomato ketchup leaking out of his burger and onto his chin as if a vampire had misdirected a snap at him. 'Balls.' He'd dropped his napkin in some spilled oil.

'The guy whose bike leaked that has more to worry about than you,' Alex said, grinning, returning from the burger van with several wet wipes. 'They'll stop you staining your tracksuit top if you squirt again. Good at sports?'

'Not bad at football,' Davie replied, wiping his chin.

'You look like a footballer.'

'Suppose.' Davie shoved the last of his burger into his mouth.

'Tasty?'

'Not bad. You didn't say what I get?'

'Suspicious mite, aren't you? A quarter of the profit.'

'It's not worth the effort.'

'Ok, ok. We sell 'em for a quid each and go fifty-fifty on what we make. I know a guy who works in a warehouse who'll sell us cheap discs.'

'Stolen goods?'

'Raw materials on discount.'

'Fifty-fifty?'

'You make it - I sell it. Two halves of the same job. I'll drum up plenty of business. C'mon, high fives.'

'Can we go home now?' Davie said, after sealing the deal.

'Fancy walking?'

'Huh? It's miles away. I meant on your bike.'

'Don't hang on like a big girl's blouse, then.'

Davie failed to complete the first week's orders; they had so many and he had so little time, and that was after he'd recruited his pal, Eddie. Only when the younger cousin said he'd pull out of the deal because no one had mentioned slavery did carping Alex finally agree to invest their initial takings in some reconditioned computers going cheap in a charity shop. Even with fairly sophisticated software, Davie had found the arrangement troublesome because he had GCSE coursework to mull over and the internet connection wasn't fast enough this side of town. The reconditioned computers proved to be efficient enough to send Alex laughing all the way to the bar. After overheads - the price of knocked off discs - the cousins were splitting in the region of one hundred and twenty quid every week. A nice little earner for someone whose most arduous task involved scribbling a few titles in a pocket diary he'd considered useless when he unwrapped it the previous Christmas. Alex's distribution method worked on the philosophy that customers would approach him or even chase him up for their films or tunes. Though Davie disliked his cousin because there was nothing about him to like, for the time being, he couldn't think of a way of cutting Alex out. Every time he received his share, Davie pocketed a small amount for a few little luxuries, paid his sub-contractor, Eddie, and saved three brown notes. The nest egg of his master plan was incubating.

Before crossing the road to the club, Davie texted Alex, who usually picked up the merchandise on Friday teatime at the end of the street, but who'd had other engagements this time round. Alex swaggered out of the club's entrance as Davie stepped up onto the pavement, having waited for a single-decker to pass. 'Ah, my geeky kid cousin.' Alex spoke slowly like a drunk who didn't want to slur. Davie's dad had done it on the few occasions he'd stayed out too late. Alex's mousy hair was gelled up in what the younger cousin secretly called boy band reject style; more stupidly, the older of the two pirates stuck needles into his arse cheeks and injected steroids so his vest and jeans bulged with swashbuckling brawn.

'Couldn't get away from floozy yesterday teatime, you'd know how it goes if you were more like me. Let's be having them.' Alex reached for the bag of discs, every finger blinged up, every inch of skin up to his vest's straps covered by tattooist's ink. Davie had never worked out what the designs on either arm were meant to represent, and he hadn't asked for fear of being splattered with bullshit. 'Right-o, kid. Thanks for everything. See you next week.'

'Something you're forgetting?'

'That'd be?'

'What makes the world go round?'

'You can't have my heart, kid, all the babes are after it. I might let you kiss my ass, I suppose.'

'It's sixty three.' Davie impatiently held out his hand.

'Don't get stroppy, kid. What's up with you?'

Davie said nothing.

'Frigging moody kids.' Alex took a slender roll of notes from his back pocket and twirled it between two fingers as he passed it over. 'I'm short of change. The rest can't be urgent.'

'I need it,' said Davie, unrolling the notes to count them.

'I've my own place to keep. What do you need the money for? Your mam and dad get you everything, don't they?' Alex dug in the front pocket of his jeans for his wallet. 'There. Three nuggets. We're square.'

'There are one hundred and forty eight films in the bag. You'll owe me fifty-nine pounds and twenty pence next week.'

'Better not forget the twenty pence, eh? Get yourself off. I can't spend all day talking to kids.'

On the other side of the road Davie recounted his money - to be double sure - rolled it back up and tucked it in his pocket. Instead of taking the first right that would lead him - via a few more turns and a snicket - to the end of his own street, he went straight ahead for a hundred or so yards and, after looking over his shoulder, turned left into a short, scruffy dead end. A couple of high panel fences blocked out several overgrown, nettle-ridden gardens and, presumably, those who didn't cultivate them. Number ninety-three's gate was wide open. Its garden was a bed of gravel with straggly weeds poking through at the foot of the low, panel fence. It needed another lick of creosote. No one answered Davie's first rap on the mucky white UPVC door; the TV was so loud he could hear Donald Duck irreverently quacking away. Davie quickly typed and dispatched a text and, just to be certain, thump, thump, thump. 'Bloody hell, Davie, don't knock the cobwebs down - they hold the place together,' Mr Woods said, self-deprecatingly as he opened up. He was a bald, chubby man of average height, with his front teeth missing and a flattened snout like he'd once been clobbered with a frying pan. The corners of his grey eyes had deep crow's feet as if the birds found him so innocuous they sometimes perched on his face. His bitty, out of date, discoloured red England away top had brown sauce stains closer to his heart than the badge.

Leaning over the chipped and smudged banister at the bottom of the stairs, Mr Woods yelled, 'Eddie! I'm sending Davie up!'

Davie steeled himself for that intense, sickly-sweet stench of the Woods' place; urine, stale grub, and something else. It didn't really trouble him anymore except on a hot day when it was so potent that it caustically tickled the back of his throat. Before stepping over the threshold he wiped his feet on the mat, which was more of a gesture than a necessity - the chocolate hall carpet, threadbare in several places down the middle, was so covered in bits and bobs that it might burn out a new vacuum if Mr Woods got round to replacing the knackered one. Down the hall, through the open kitchen door, pans and plates precariously towered up out of the sink and over the empty Chinese takeaway cartons scattered on the draining board.

Mrs Woods died of cancer three years ago and Mr Woods had said he'd keep the place respectable in her memory. However, going out to work to support their kids - Eddie was the second eldest of two brothers and two younger sisters - and housekeeping proved to be too much for a man who grew evermore partial to nattering over a lager or three. Although for the past year Mr Woods had only found agency work, here, there, for a few weeks at a time, his family's abode showed no signs of the scrubbed orderliness Mrs Woods had left it in. Her husband had figured tidying up was never going to bring her back.

'How's your dad?' Mr Woods asked, causing Davie to stall on the stairs.

'Not too sure. I haven't seen him for over a week. There's been a fallout.'

'So I've heard. Shame. Get yourself up, then.'

Red-haired, tubby Eddie was spread, belly down, across the grubby quilt on his bed. The quilt was stained with coke, tomato ketchup and curry sauce. Eddie was half-dressed in a red and white hooped T-shirt, Santa boxer shorts and blue socks with holes in the toe-ends as if he was immune to the cold of the room. Davie thought it was warmer outside. Furiously pressing the fire button on a control pad, Eddie's eyes didn't so much as flicker from his TV screen. 'Prepare to have your head knocked off,' he said by way of a welcome as he reached the next level.

Navigating the scattered laundry, dog-eared textbooks, action figures and empty pizza boxes on the floor like they made up a minefield, Davie dropped a tenner onto the quilt. 'You turned out twenty movies?'

'Spot on.' Eddie stuffed the note into his pillow before reaching to the floor for a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms, which he pulled on after rolling on his back. Davie settled on the edge of the bed with the other control pad, staring at the TV screen and psyching himself up for the test ahead. Eddie saved the game he'd blasted away on and loaded up - after scrambling through a pile of discs on the floor - their number one street fighting game. Following a quick fire exchange of insults, the boys set about breaking each others bones with sticks and whatever else came to hand in the virtual world.

Perhaps an hour later, Mr Woods pushed open the door with his shoulder. 'Snap's served,' he said, presenting a ham and pineapple pizza in eight slices on a plate. In his other hand, he carried a big value bottle of cola with two blue beakers upside down on the neck. 'Tuck in, lads. You need stamina when you're scrapping the day long.'

'Nice one, Mr Woods.'

'Cheers, Dad.'

'Shit, shower, shave, and then I'm dropping the girls off at our Barbara's. I fancy a few refreshments. Make sure you don't kill each other.' Grinning, he closed the door behind him.

Picking his second slice of pizza from the plate on the bed, Davie got something off his chest: 'Alex is a prat and I get the feeling he's going to mess up in a big way.'

'Just use him until you find another outlet,' said Eddie, munching. 'The money's cool and he's access to the old fogies who don't know how to download their own stuff.' Eddie never turned down an offer to up production.

'He was already wrecked when I just dropped off this week's stuff.'

A saucy pineapple chunk slipped from Davie's pizza slice onto his fingers; he popped it into his mouth.

'You write the titles on the discs. People know what they've ordered. How can he get that wrong?'

'He'll find a way. He was the undisputed clown of the family until my clueless dad knocked him off the top spot. What a family I've got.'

'Your dad's all right,' said Eddie, frowning.

'I don't understand how everything went on without him knowing.'

'You didn't know about it.'

'That's different. I'm not married to my mum.'

'She's a good sort, too,' Eddie added, thoughtfully.

'She is?' And then Davie recalled how his parents had helped to look after Eddie and his two younger sisters when their mother approached the end. 'Pity about our Alicia.'

'She does her own thing very Alicia-ish. No one does it better.'

'You mean she's nuts.'

'Alex will go nuts if you try to cut him out.'

'Don't put me off our pizza.'

The boys became aware they'd been playing for hours when Mr Woods' voice drifted up the stairs. He was telling his daughters, with a boozer's loud, maudlin insightfulness, that they'd best stop squabbling because a time might come when they only had each other.

'Ok, our Graham's in Afghanistan, but where does he think I'm going?' asked Eddie.

'Maybe it's time for me to move, though.' Davie made a gap in the curtains and peered out. The streetlights had switched on. No matter what Mum, Dad and Alicia thought, Davie applied himself at school, and he'd resolved to knock a big hole in his history and maths homework so most of Sunday could be dedicated to an IT project. When he'd been to college, he intended to set up a computer shop with the money he'd put away. By his mid-twenties, he'd be a venerated entrepreneur. That was the big difference between him and Alicia; his dream was realistic.

Davie couldn't say ta-ra to Mr Woods because he was already snoring in his armchair, his jowls and belly sagging. He'd spilled gravy on his leaf green polo shirt. Davie waved at eight years old Amy and seven years old Jess and they shyly giggled before returning their attention to kid-sized fish and chips in trays and cartoon Alice in Wonderland on TV. The aroma of vinegar made Davie peckish; he pinched a chip from Jess and popped it into his mouth pretending no one had seen a thing. The girls giggled again. Amy generously held out her portion and Davie snapped up a few scraps. He'd burn some more entertainment for the little strawberry blonds, bless them.

Davie jogged through most of the estate. He'd never liked the snicket at night; though a short cut to his street, it was pitch-dark and he always expected someone or something to jump out from the hedges to pin him to the junior school's railings. Zombies don't exist, he said to himself mentally, sprinting through the darkness. And it was when he emerged into the street, panting, that he was surprised. 'Well, well, well, just the very soul,' said a gravelly voice. Damn! It was the bulldog-faced bruiser, Liam Briggs. He got up from the edge of the pavement, rolling his wide shoulders, looking colossal and menacing in a black bubble jacket. Liam had been in the school year above Davie until he'd been expelled a few months before last year's exams for bludgeoning his luck through every rule. Since then, as far as Davie was concerned, Liam had been as invisible as a gloved felon's fingerprints. Until his luck just ran out.

'Well, it's been nice seeing you,' Davie said, his puff returning, trying to keep his voice steady. 'Must dash.'

Liam blocked him. Davie could smell on Liam's breath the cig he'd just snuffed out.

'We can be of service to one another,' Liam smiled, resting his paw on Davie's shoulder.

'Don't think so.' Davie shrugged off Liam's clamp.

'Now, now...'

'Will you let me pass?'

'As you wish.' Liam stepped aside.

'Catch you...'

Thud! Davie's face chewed asphalt. Liam cruelly smirked as he twisted his victim's arm up his back. 'I could have you anytime, boy.' Instead, Liam let go of Davie's arm, removed his knee from his back, got up and pulled the dazed lad to his feet by his wrists. Davie's palms stung with grazes and a throbbing lump had swollen over the brow of his right eye. It hurt like the time he'd been clipped by a motorist and knocked off his pushbike several years ago.

'The streets aren't safe these days,' Liam said, before tut-tutting.

Davie licked grit from his scathed hands and spat it into the gutter.

Liam's expression hardened when he gazed into Davie's eyes and couldn't see tears. 'A little songbird has told me all about it.'

'The saying is little bird. And I don't know who's been tweeting what but they're making a twit out of you.'

'A clever, talented lad like you can't think on about what's going on? You'd better use your head.'

'Can't hear any bells ringing.'

'Ding-DONG!' Davie creased double at the impact of the hook to his ribs; it stole his wind and left him raw and rasping for breath.

'I understand that you're raking in a tidy profit every week. I'll settle for half to make sure no harm comes your way. It's a standard agreement. You've probably seen it in action on one of those films of yours. I've got your number. I want a payment in the next few days. Don't wait for an invoice.'

'You're joking,' Davie gasped.

'Have I got a red nose? Am I on stilts? Did I just put a custard pie or the floor in your face?'

'I don't - Christ, did you have to hit me like that? - make that much. It doesn't work like that.'

'Two days. Make it worth my while.' Liam slipped up the snicket into the shadows.

Davie trudged up the street nursing his elbow, which had started to hurt more than his stinging palms, the lump on his forehead, the ache in his guts, combined. Though he grimaced, fighting back tears, he felt proud he hadn't gone down when Liam had slugged him. The thug would have expected him to drop like a condemned man through the gallows' trap door. There was a time when Davie would have run indoors crying for his dad whenever someone bigger was looking for trouble, but he couldn't rely on the old man now. That was the past. And physical pain was the least of Davie's worries.

It was bad enough that torrent sites were being forced to temporarily close down, even disappearing altogether; how the hell did Liam work out he was coining enough for them both? Because he was a great dumb lump. Davie sniggered, hurting his ribs. He could always tell that other great dope, Alex, and he'd soon knock Liam straight. Bad idea. Liam had an enormous, lawless family and it was unwise to lock horns with them. How stupid! Warring families! It sounded even more like one of the crappy gangster movies from where Liam had no doubt half-inched his swindling idea. Not that films could be blamed for Liam's idiocy; he was the sort of opportunistic scumbag who would try anything once, no matter where he'd heard about it. Sure, you heard the stories about his alcoholic parents and rotten childhood, and felt so much sympathy up to the point where you met him. He was too unpredictable. Mean. Downright dangerous. But it didn't matter if he was the devil incarnate; there was no way Davie could pay, and he wouldn't if he had all the money in the world. It was a matter of principle. He just had to be careful wherever he went, once ambushed, forever on guard. And he'd make sure Alex always picked up the discs at the garden gate. Ha! It was easy - no problem, after all. His moronic cousin had become the key to continued success. Everybody has their uses, so it seems. Liam Briggs might as well choke on popcorn - or whatever he stuffed his fat face with - as he idolised his movie hoods and freaks. He couldn't do nuthin'. Though it might be a laugh if he put a horse's head in Alicia's bed.

Alicia was practicing her singing in the shower and Davie hoped her rendition of some lovey-dovey pop song would drown out any creaks on the stairs. He gently closed the front door. 'Where have you been all day?'

Shit.

'I'm talking to you.'

'Eddie's.' He slipped his trainers off, wincing at his stinging hands and aching ribs. 'I've already eaten.' He put a foot on the bottom stair. 'We had pizza.'

'Let me take a look at your haircut.'

'I'm just...'

'Now!'

There was no way out of it. She'd only follow him to his room. Davie dragged his feet to the kitchen.

'Look at the state of your face!'

'I tripped over a kerb running home.'

'Have you been drinking?' Cathy slammed down the knife she was using to slice a carrot and shot across the kitchen to sniff Davie's breath. Negative. 'What are you like? We'd best get you cleaned up. Look at your hands! And you've put the knee of your jeans through!' Another thought occurred to her. She looked sternly into his face. 'Have you been fighting?'

'I said, I fell.'

'Did you fall?'

'Ok. I bumped into Mike Tyson and thought I could beat him in one round now he's retired.'

'Your lip still works. I suppose you must be fine, give or take a bruise.'

She was wiping Davie's battered brow with antiseptic wipes by the sink when Alicia bounced into the room, her blond hair darkened by shower water, a stripy red and orange beach towel wrapped round her from her chest down to her thighs. 'Mum, I'm in such great voice, hitting all the high notes... Who did you bug?'

'He's tumbled.'

'He's been drinking. He gets the money...'

'Alicia, credit your brother with some sense. And I'm going to have a word with him about that later.'

'Huh! Anyway, Mum, I'm absolutely smashing your favourite song. It's on next week's set list!

'That's brilliant, babe.'

'I suppose,' said Davie, pulling away from his mother, 'a little songbird like you doesn't care when her brother meets with an accident. Been on the phone to anyone today?'

'Davie, come here and let me...'

'I've spoken to a few friends. Got a problem with that? And don't be absurd - you've fallen over. Remember?' Alicia snorted down her nose. 'I best go and get into some clothes. Don't wipe his bum, Mum. He's big enough to do that for himself,' she laughed, making her exit.

'Stop pulling faces, Davie, and let me get done. I've my tea to finish. And how come you haven't had your hair cut?'

'I forgot. I've still got the money.'

'Get it cut on Monday after school. You can limp there, can't you?'

Davie recoiled as Cathy pressed a tad too hard with a wipe. But it was nothing to what someone he knew might get. Forget the gangster movies that Liam was likely too fond of watching, there'd be a real enough war in this family should he find out Alicia had tipped off the great meathead. And Davie would make sure he won.

### Chapter Four

They'd hate her even more than they already did! She could take it from girls who are so devastatingly plain they'd welcome an outbreak of yellow heads as if they're a natural cosmetic, like saggy arse Brogan Davis - 'A Hundred and One Handjobs' as the bad boys called her - or that foul, tourettic megaphone, Jasmine Meacher, who so eagerly spread her fake-tanned legs she'd been nicknamed Marmite. She could see straight through their niggling jealousies and nasty insecurities that make it so clear why no one is loved by everyone. But it's so gutting when, as soon as your back is turned, the people you've bent over backwards to win over rag you like a pack of deprived Rottweilers with a soft toy. It had been futile, pathetic, to think that the world might identify with her, the lost princess of... of... excruciating heartbreak. Her career was over before she could perform a dirge! And she'd so wanted to prove that her beauty comes from within. Only a pure heart can produce such sweet, delicious melodies.

Alicia stared into the condensing mirror on the whitewashed dressing room wall. The misty sheen would soon cloak her reflection; it'd be as if she'd never stood there. And it was just as well. She couldn't go through with it. Not for all the front covers on W H Smith's shelves.

Two wooden chairs covered in chips and stubbed-tab burns and an equally squalid, small round table, with a half-empty bottle of water on its sticky top, were the luxuries of what was effectively a box-room. No more than eight feet by eight feet, it hosted the turns in the social club where, in just twenty or so minutes time, Alicia was booked to make a song and dance. The room had two doors \- one led to three worn, wooden steps and up them, oh my god, the stage; the other opened onto the concert room where how many people were waiting? Her mother had put posters up at work and in shop windows! Alicia herself had pinned up a huge, glossy announcement in the college common room! Beyond the concert room door, under the loud grooves of seventies disco, the babble of the crowd got louder by the minute.

People can be so much crueller when they're drunk, thought Alicia. She recalled some school lesson based on a letter by Dickens about hangings. From the highest to the lowest in society, the Victorians took to public executions as if they were fairs. No one was excluded. Even the clap-ridden prostitutes had a banging good time! It was only the humiliating thought of tearfully rushing through the gathering throng in order to getaway that held Alicia back. The rotten room was a cell! Oh, if only it was her coffin! It'd be over! She wouldn't have to suffer any more! How had she ever believed she was a natural born diva? Thank God her dad wasn't here to say, 'I told you.' Hadn't it been blatantly obvious after those horrible auditions?

All the same, Alicia had news for her dad who she now pretended was stood right in front of her. She hadn't lied about the first audition! So there! And it hadn't been half the inconvenience he'd made it out to be; okay, he'd driven over to Manchester, but he hadn't queued in the rain! He'd spent the afternoon quaffing cocktails in the hotel lounge! It was Alicia and her mother who'd suffered under an umbrella amidst the swarm of fame-hungry hopefuls surrounding The Theatre of Dreams.

Alicia's stomach had cramped in the small hours. By the time her mobile's alarm broke into the X-factor theme, she'd been up sporadically spewing into the toilet bowl for what felt like the duration of her dad's Pink Floyd collection, live bootlegs included. She sobbed, horrified by her death-white reflection in the mirror over the washbasin - the judges would think she was some kind of Goth! Why was this happening? Had the capricious gods of entertainment sent her a test? Did she have to demonstrate that the show always goes on? Feeling like she did, she wasn't fit for the bottom of a bill never mind those demanding high notes. Humph with maudlin violins! She should have picked an easier song for her audition. And it later proved to be a colossal mistake to blame nerves when Dad asked her why she was so quiet. She hadn't even kicked up a fuss about her outfit, allowing Mum to choose from the three they'd packed due to Alicia's indecision about which one fate had specifically designed for her triumphant moment. Mum opted for the long black gown so that stains wouldn't show so much should an accident occur. Now I really look like I've crawled from a crypt, thought Alicia, so crippled by belly ache she hadn't the strength to object. She'd have awakened the dead otherwise.

When the taxi dropped them off, the mob of hopefuls had grown intimidatingly ginormous. Under a bronze statue of three footballers, Alicia lurched over and vomited yellow bile. The victorious salute of the statue's central hero seemed to ridicule her plight, yet a nearby steward ceased shepherding new arrivals behind temporary steel barriers to bark: 'How disrespectful! That's the holy trinity! Any more of it and I'll turn you away, madam.'

'Haven't you any compassion?' Cathy asked, scoldingly. 'She's sick with nerves!'

'Get into this queue if you want to get in,' he replied, adding to the sea of waves that greeted a low-flying helicopter. A camera man dangled a leg from its sides as he filmed. 'Hi Mum!' the steward shouted over the cheers, cutely waggling the fingers of his right hand. Enough footage captured, the helicopter buzzed off over the football ground's stands.

Alicia and her mum forlornly waited in the swollen, winding queue. The sky was a cold, grey sheet as comforting as one covering a bedwetter's mattress. Cathy put up her umbrella, embracing her pale daughter under its shelter. Thankfully she'd persuaded Alicia to borrow her stylish trench coat and slip it on over her gown. The queue shuffled along. Stopped. Urrgggh! The remains of Alicia's stomach lining splashed at their feet.

'Excuse me. Should she be here?' asked a skeletal, zitty indie kid. He wore round glasses, a sickly green, suede smoking jacket and torn jeans so paint-splattered it looked like Jackson Pollack did his laundry. Indie kid was stood directly behind them, smoothing his greased-up quiff. 'I don't want to be catching whatever she's got.' He jigged like a puppet on strings in his bright red brothel creepers. 'I've a date with stardom, missus.'

'She hasn't got anything catching. She's just apprehensive, aren't you, babe?'

'Doesn't look like that to me,' fired a bloated Madonna-alike in front of them. She bulged in a pink leotard under a studded leather jacket. Her white tights and canvas plimsolls were saturated, as if she'd paddled up the Manchester Ship Canal en route. 'Pick Me!' demanded the white letters amateurishly sewn into her fluorescent pink headband.

'She's sick as a parrot with bird flu!' So claimed a lanky transvestite in some kind of tin-foil spacesuit, a deep purple bob wig and matching platform boots. They had tiny silver stars glued all over them. His lipstick was black as if he'd kissed the Grim Reaper. 'And she probably squawks like a parrot!' He fluttered his purple eyelashes with his hands on his hips. 'Put Polly back in her cage!'

'They ought to send you to a freak-show!' The transvestite's camp bitching had crawled under Alicia's skin; she angrily hit back despite her cheeks turning a shade too close to the green of the indie kid's jacket.

'It's you usual suspects whose goose is already cooked,' Cathy shot from her lip. 'You've even come prepared for an hour on gas mark five going on the way you're dressed. The judges will recommend you to Ready Steady Cook.'

Everyone in earshot giggled at the transvestite's tin-foil spacesuit.

'I suppose, duckies,' he whimpered, twiddling the ends of the fake fur round his neck, 'you'll pay my train fare if...'

'I'll hang you with that if I hear any more,' Cathy rapped.

'Blimey, listen to it!' The tranny stepped back, as if fearing Cathy might at least swing for him.

'I think I ate something bad for supper in the hotel,' Alicia groaned.

'Me and Dad are fine, babe. Supper was fine.'

'You didn't order the...' Farrrphhhh!

'That smells disgusting,' the transvestite complained, holding his nose. Cathy had to agree. Dirty nappies had always repulsed her; changing them had been the bane of motherhood, and it had many moments.

Alicia's face tearfully screwed up as she clutched her bum through the trench coat like she was holding something up.

'Goodbye. Get well soon,' smirked the transvestite.

Everybody but Alicia and Cathy howled. They applauded as the blushing mother and her teary-eyed daughter skulked away under their umbrella, the latter still clutching her backside like it might fall off.

Alicia's soiled knickers were dumped in the toilet of a nearby pub before they requested a number for a taxi from the barman. He gave them a card, and Cathy ordered drinks. The pair silently waited for their lift in a corner, under a framed black and white poster featuring a jubilant player holding aloft the European Cup. Alicia didn't touch her mineral water, but Cathy sipped away her Bloody Mary that had a little too much Tabasco sauce. She needed a drink for what might come next.

'She did what?' Dad asked, unable to believe his ears, when his wife had dragged him up from the hotel bar. 'Show biz isn't for you, Alicia,' he called through to the bathroom where she was hiding, 'if you get stage fright so bad.'

'She thinks she ate something that'd gone off,' Cathy explained, relieved that her husband hadn't particularly overreacted, one way or the other. He leaked that slightly silly glow of alcohol consumption.

'Food poisoning?'

'From this rotten dive,' sniffled Alicia, emerging from the shower wrapped in a great white towel.

Her dad had been enjoying a tipple or two with a Scouse nurse and his carer wife. John and Julie were visiting Manchester for the opening date of some comeback tour, greatest hits and several original band members included. By the time John arrived to take a look at her, Alicia had slumped onto the couch in her pyjamas. 'She's got the symptoms of quite severe food poisoning,' the off-duty nurse confirmed, his breath reeking of garlic, which made Alicia retch again. John moved towards the door. 'Plenty of fluids, rest and a complaint are going to remedy things.'

The hotel manager had eyes like a bird of prey and an unflappable disposition. He slickly asserted that his staff had impeccable curriculum vitaes and pointed out that no other guests had been taken ill. 'It's a four-star hotel that's worthy of its five-star reviews - an excellent base from which to explore the city,' he smiled, expediently withholding the information that only one guest had opted for egg mayonnaise on her salad. 'Everything's accessible from here. And I'm sure you'll appreciate a case of white wine to take home as a goodwill gesture.'

'Quality stuff?'

'Most excellent, sir.'

'Ian!'

'Dad!'

'Stage fright, after all,' said Dad, and Alicia's second stab at fame a year later seemed to vindicate his hotly-disputed opinion.

Fighting fit and dressed to kill in a black PVC catsuit that had almost stopped Dad's ticker, Alicia made it all the way to the entrance of an audition booth on her return to the Theatre of Dreams a year later. She'd rehearsed her routine so thoroughly she could practically perform it in her sleep while dreaming of cruising LA's sun-kissed boulevards in a classic red Cadillac. What came over her? She'd never been able to say, although the catsuit did her no favours. She'd suddenly felt nauseatingly daft - most of the others were in denim or dresses! Blubberwubber! She kicked her new high heels over the protective flooring on the pitch and fled, dodging contestants, wrong-footing a concerned steward, leaping over a barrier and - ouch! - she stubbed a big toe on the stand's concrete aisle. The other hopefuls who waited their turns in the seats heartily cheered the mad, sexy girl as if her frantic performance was part of the day's official entertainment. Avoiding their stares, Alicia raced up the steps alongside the seats towards an exit sign. She tripped over herself down some other steps, and tumbled into the heart of the stand. Another flirtation with fame was over. Only a handful of those queuing for overpriced snacks or to spend pennies in the ladies noticed the barefooted girl who almost fell down the stairwell in her haste to get out.

An hour later, Cathy and Ian braked alongside their crestfallen, puffy-eyed baby, shivering on a windy street corner in some downbeat area whose imposing, towering buildings still, after so many years, secreted a ghostly stench of the industrial revolution's privations. Alicia slipped into the back seat without a word. Her parents said nothing. Dad eased the car into slow traffic.

The loaded silence held until Cathy closed the door of their hotel rooms behind them. 'What the hell were you thinking running to a place like that in an outfit like that? You could have been mistaken for a hooker!'

'You put her up to wearing that gear,' Dad interjected. 'And who was right about Alicia and stage fright?'

'I put her up to nothing! She's got a mind of her own.'

'And we've standards and rules of our own.'

'Responsible parents aren't necessarily control freaks.'

'I didn't know where I was going,' Alicia sobbed. 'I didn't know!'

'We know where you're not going,' Dad said, 'and that's to the top of the charts.' He realised how harsh that sounded right now. Maybe it was just what Alicia needed. 'You'll get over it by getting your head in textbooks. Staying in will at least save me and your mother a few quid.'

'That's all you're bothered about? Alicia can have a portfolio. Modelling is more her thing. Strutting and posing is so easy anyone can do it.'

Cathy's words tormented Alicia by emphasising her failure. With a grimy, blistered foot, she kicked over a lampshade and ran to her room, locking the door behind her.

'Less of that!' Exasperated Dad rushed over to the toppled lampshade and stood it up. 'Only rock stars can behave like that in hotels!'

And now, on her return to show business - or rather on her stage debut should the role of Virgin Mary in a nativity play be discounted - the same miserable fear gripped Alicia. She trembled under her long, snow-white gown, which, with its thigh split and plummeting neckline, did too much flaunting when she only wanted to hide. Oh, for her cosy room where she might open the cupboard to her own secret doll land! Her inanimate childhood friends were stored in a shiny red box with a silver ribbon on the lid, and once they were let out, didn't they walk and talk just how she liked them to? And didn't she love them with all her heart in return? How could she sing in front of so many hateful strangers? She wouldn't find the right key! She was so clumsy she might trip over herself as she tried to dance! The club's drunken rabble had never done anything special; how could they sit in judgement over her? But oh, what if she brought the house down with laughter by filling her knickers again? The shame of it! Her sole consolation was that Dad wouldn't see it. She had to face it - she just wasn't pretty enough. Good enough? She'd never make it.

Alicia glumly considered sneaking round the back of the stage in the hope she'd locate a fire exit. Her plan was extinguished by the realisation that Davie would tease her to the infernos of hell and back once he got wind of any such move. And what about Mum's disappointment? She'd worked so hard to make this a memorable, big night. It was Mum's skilled, feminine touch that had made Alicia look like a million dollars with interest even if nothing could stop her feeling impoverished. And imagine the rumours at college! Alicia wished she could be anywhere but the horrid dressing room. She'd even exchange places with Lisa Barrett who had turned up at college and told their physics tutor - in front of the whole class! - that she hadn't done her boring homework because her parents couldn't afford a textbook. What about that? Why couldn't Alicia put on a strop, say it was a load of rubbish, and walk out? The kids from skint families did it all the time, only it was because they couldn't do something rather than they didn't want to do something. But it would work both ways, wouldn't it? Pooh! Nobody would believe her. Everybody had heard her promise to become a star. Maybe she'd have to drop her A-levels and... It was no use. She was trapped.

A sudden rage overwhelmed Alicia, giving her something that resembled courage. Who were these fools to think they could draw her tears and ruin her make-up? Who were they to laugh? The great joke of life was on them because they were all - down to the last man and woman - the worst thing of all: non-entities! She was Alicia Randall and a pimple on her butt - except she never got them - was worth more than the lot of them! She'd show them! She'd do it! Her angelic voice would make them bow down like God Almighty had come to earth to revive his popularity. She'd...

Someone knocked.

'Who is it?' Alicia fiercely demanded.

'Only me.' Mum stuck her head round the door. 'How are you feeling? All set?'

'I could do with a hug.' Alicia's fury had liquefied to an emotional puddle like an ice-cube thrown onto a sun-baked pavement.

Cathy's lemon and chocolate paisley blouse harmonised with her cream cravat, faded, bell-bottom jeans and sandals to generate her rock chick look, which she hoped was stylishly subdued and wouldn't upstage the main attraction. With the door closed behind her, Cathy placed her spritzer on the table beside Alicia's bottle of water. 'You're the real thing, darling,' she enthused, embracing her daughter. She pecked her on the cheek. 'It'll be the best ever show.'

'Honestly?'

'You're my Alicia. You can't possibly fail.'

'You're the one that's impossibly unique,' Alicia said, clinging to her mother. 'And I'm so sorry, really, I'm so sorry.'

'Don't be worrying about that. It was always going to happen. And we're happy, aren't we?'

'I... Yes.'

'Dad will come round in the end.'

'He will?'

'He loves you in his own way. Now let me go before we make a mess of ourselves over history. So many people have turned out! It's unbelievably exciting! And guess what else? Mr Boden is here and he bought me a double.'

Alicia had to sit down and take a drink of cool water. Mr Boden was the agent they'd led everyone to believe had taken Alicia on. It was only a white lie; he'd put her on his books providing tonight went well.

'So,' Cathy lavishly smiled, 'it's time to take your first steps along the road from humble beginnings to where you want to be. Mr Boden has kindly agreed to introduce you. When you hear three knocks on the door he'll be making his way up onto the stage. That's when my number one steps through the stage door...'

'Mum!'

'Oh babe, I'm fussing and upsetting your final preparations. I'll make myself scarce. Do you need anything?'

'I think I'll be fine,' Alicia replied, steeling herself to face her worse enemy. Her own company.

'Break a leg, babe,' Cathy said, picking up her drink, hoping she hadn't tempted doom by saying the wrong thing.

The excited chatter that poured through the door as she left brought Alicia's alienation crawling out of the four walls. 'Oh my god, this can't be normal,' the teenager muttered, beside herself. Was she insane? What did Davie mean when he called her a weirdo? Would doing herself up like Marilyn Manson make her feel authentic? But then, hadn't she, Alicia Randall - whoever and whatever she was - drawn a bigger crowd than the useless talent show contestants before they hit television screens? It must be easy with a whole world of publicity and people to advise you, people who knew about what it takes. What if - just what if - tonight's audience didn't hate her? And Mr Boden had turned up and bought Mum a drink... Huh! As if that signalled a man's best intentions. Alicia hid her face in her hands. She was thinking like a tart now! Really, how do you make sense of anything?

The three knocks never came. Alicia had only spoken over the phone to Mr Boden after sending him a You-tube clip of her performing in her bedroom, but she recognised him from his photograph in the Express when he stuck his trilby covered head round the door. 'Let's be having you!' And that was it. He disappeared like he was late for his own funeral. Or somebody's. Gulp.

Alicia's hand quaked so uncontrollably on the stage door's handle she had to pause to pull her pieces together and check nothing had dropped off. With a deep breath, she plunged through to the other side. Her fear of the dark at the bottom of the three steps made her skip up them onto the stage where it was lighter, if still dim, behind the red, musty curtain that would shortly lift onto teenager-devouring terror. She pictured bloodied talons swooping down from a great hole in the collapsing ceiling. Her mouth went dry; a tickling bead of sweat slithered down her back to soak into her knickers' elastic. At least they were clean this time, she giggled hysterically... 'Testing, testing, one, two, three, ahem.' Mr Boden's amplified voice on the other side of the curtain so startled Alicia that she jolted as stiff as if she'd already died on the stage. 'Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to return to your wonderful, hospitable club to introduce a gorgeous new talent, a star in the making, and one that will shine for years. Let's hear it for magnificent Alicia Randall!' Weirdly distant, polite applause broke out creating the illusion that Alicia was travelling - hurtling - away from everybody. She looked down at her feet in silver high heels. She was in the same spot. And then she heard a click. The two-bit stagehand, who was already tipsy when she arrived, had put on her backing track with the old hand finesse - slap! - he had to learn to keep to himself. The curtain twitched. Alicia closed her eyes and her pulse in her ears caused a drowning sensation that made her gasp... The curtain had gone. Alicia could see nothing but the hot, blink-inducing glare of stage lights. She had to squint to make out, beyond them, people's silhouettes along the bar. It was the only source of light out there, as if the room was under an eclipse... Here's the music! What the hell did she do? The mic! In her eagerness to take it from its stand she almost went over on one of her high heels... The song! Sing it! Alicia's knees nearly gave way - she'd forgotten the lyrics! No! Wait! She knew them! 'Whoo! Ooo yeah! Uh-huh!' - don't forget the melody! - 'clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade...' Incredibly, her voice was loud and proud. Yes, that's me! Alicia Randall - doing it! She kicked off her high heels and stomped her right foot as if it was hotwired to the beat. Her hips twitched, swayed, and the momentum spread through her until she burst out of herself and soared so high she felt she was invincible, going out of this world towards the great blazing flames of the biggest star in the whole universe.

A little over half an hour later, as a muffled, flat voice called out bingo numbers, Alicia buckled and fell into one of the chairs in her dressing room. She began hyperventilating; her fingers, toes and lips tingled as if the electricity of life was surging through her veins, sparking, crackling, charging up a new incarnation. Several convulsions rocked her body. And then her panicky light-headedness was engulfed by sheet lightning blankness without thunder, as if forecasting a peaceful, refreshing downpour on the grey matter that had hitherto been hot and barren. Alicia caught her breath and her body went limp. Somewhere between sleep and consciousness, she rode on a magic carpet, up, up and through the clouds. The next thing she knew she was showering under a stunning, serene, natural waterfall in a balmy clime. In this unexpected, verdant, exotic calm in the wake of her after-show storm, everything seemed so vibrant, so promising. For a moment she was mesmerised by huge, beautiful, strange white flowers that seemed to smile just before she blinked. Her gentle, invigorating ecstasy - quietly echoing her spiritual soaring up on the stage - testified that, if she had been a monster that everyone had helped a modern, societal Frankenstein to create, she was also gifted with the charming looks to acquire acceptance and love. Ultimately, much more in the line of a contemporary, repackaged Gothic heroine, Alicia quivered with exhilaration as she came round. Her gig had not been the 'unconquerable horror' of literary yesteryear. She felt brand new. Miracles can happen.

Even so, she had no idea as to whether they had booed, clapped or cheered and, already, her experience had the foggy quality of a memory so old it seemed to exceed the years of her existence. Only when Cathy burst in and popped the bubble of Alicia's incipient reverie, in which an obsessive hunk hunted her down for her autograph, did she discover she had truly been a success. 'Darling, words can't describe it! They were dancing round the tables and chairs!' Cathy skipped over the fact that she had instigated such carousing by performing sultry, covered-up belly dances that rubbed up the bodies and steamily breathed in the faces of the men who stood impassive. When she had pricked her victims' instincts for carnal, primeval ritual and they joined in - encouraging the women they were with - Cathy moved on to enrapture others. She flitted like a succubus who penetrated fantasy worlds rather than dreamscapes.

'Mr Boden wants you to have a drink with him before your second set. And your friends and Jessie, Carol and Ann are dying to congratulate you. Are you ready to meet your public?'

'Am I a mess?'

'You're a star!'

'Give me, um, a few minutes.' Alicia showed her mother out with puckered lips blowing oversized kisses. When the door closed Alicia spun on her heels and fell back, propping her slight shoulders against it. A second set! She had to do it again!

The extraordinary idea that she at last had an appreciative public rinsed away the residue of Alicia's former fear as if it had been nothing but badly applied mascara. Certain that no one else would intrude upon her solitude, she took the few steps across the poky room to study her reflection in the mirror on the wall. Wiping at the condensation with her fingers, she sent droplets trailing from the looking-glass down to the grubby whitewash. Her fringe, which her mother had meticulously curled into golden ringlets, was drooping as if Alicia had sweat out a dangerous fever. A cringe accompanied the thought that she endured the same bodily functions as everyone else; she should be aloof to such vulgarity, just like a goddess toned in smooth, hard, cool marble. At the very least she should be akin to a super heroine with no need for those things they so embarrassingly advertised on TV. The girl lightly patted and flicked her ringlets, fluffing them back to second-class heavenliness. She was ready for the mortals.

Unsure how to carry herself in public now she was the latest next best thing since Leona Lewis, Alicia's strut had a pained, tiptoeing, wobbly awkwardness. She felt the eyes of the little people pore over her and she just resisted the impulse to wave in every direction, unaware that the keenest observers suspected she'd something stuck in her high heels. Should she be reinvented as a coquettish angel-next-door? A rebel rocker? A steamy siren? With costume changes, she could be all three in her future videos, that much was obvious. Her astonishment as she peered around the shadowy, humid room put her identity crisis on hold - every seat at every table was taken; men and women were stood three deep along the back wall; even more were packed along and around the bar, lapping it up like jailbirds who'd been let out for the weekend. If Alicia didn't care for the majority of her fans, her mother's promotional skills were sensational. What a party!

Alicia got over herself when the brawny captain of the club's rugby team elbowed one of his team-mates into her. 'He can't get out of bed for a cup match so he might as well have a trophy worth staying between the sheets for,' he guffawed. Alicia stepped back, appalled. 'Oh dear, beauty doesn't want the beast!' The entire scrum laughed and drummed on table tops, spilling beers, as their tardy winger got out of the way faster than he ever dissected opposing defences.

The revelation that she had serenaded loudmouthed apes threatened to douse Alicia's elation. Luckily for her, Cathy had spied her flustered starlet and rescued her from another internalised tempest by waving her over. Cathy proudly beamed at Jessie and co as Alicia coyly picked her way to the thereabouts of her mother's bosom, which had seen so much unwanted limelight over the years Cathy had learned to blank out its glare if not switch it off.

'Babe!' Cathy opened her arms.

'Mum!' Alicia stepped up to be held.

'We'll riot if it gets any better,' grinned Jessie.

'You look fabulous!' Alicia shrieked, unhooking herself from her mother and shaking her hands by her own diamond-studded ears as if her excitement was uncontainable. As if Jessie had spent the last decade in Australia and this was the first time she'd flown back to visit. Jessie's newly crimped, brunette tresses and red and white polka dot rah-rah dress made her look like a dinner so past its sell-by date a half-starved, scraggy dingo would turn up its nose, or so Alicia thought. But she wasn't going to wreck her moment of glory with the critical truth. 'Your outfit is... is... really... something.'

'I knew you were going to do some oldies so I came as an eighties chick.' Jessie gave a dainty twirl.

'Oh...' A theme! '...I adore it! You're very thoughtful!'

In Alicia's eyes, Ann and Carol's lippy and blusher looked to have been applied with decorators' rollers. Their too similar black dresses with hefty, square shoulder pads made them look like heavyweight drag queens in mourning. But they had gone to the trouble of giving their hair some life with a new bob and a perm, respectively. They gushingly praised Alicia. 'I hope you won't forget us when you're rich and famous!' Carol nudged Alicia with her shoulder a tad too enthusiastically.

'Of course not,' Alicia smiled reassuringly, struggling not to grind her teeth. 'I'll give you my autograph and you can sell it when my time comes. Have you got a pen?'

'That would be lovely, and somewhere,' giggled Carol, unsure that Alicia meant it. Carol rummaged in her leopard-print handbag.

'Unfortunately, it'll have to wait,' Cathy interrupted. 'Mr Boden expects. Excuse us, ladies.'

Alicia followed her mother's gaze to the far side of the busy bar. The man who had stuck his head round her dressing room door was beckoning to them.

'I'll be with you in a jiffy,' Alicia squealed to her besty, Sally, who had just crossed the empty dance floor to invite her over to their college friends. 'I've got to see my agent, tch.'

'Life in the fast lane already. We're over there when you can fit us in your diary.'

Alicia leaned over and put her lips to petite, cute Sally's cheek. But had that remark flashed claws?

Mr Boden - a gaunt curmudgeon in his mid-fifties, with a disproportionately large, red, bulbous nose like that of an alcoholic clown's, and a gawky, jerky gait as if he couldn't get rid of a random itch - had named his agency Circus. His watery, bloodshot, cobalt eye and fastidiously ignorant ear had failed to pick up on the pokerfaced cheek of a comedian who'd had it up to here with underpaid shows. 'You say a ringmaster with a whip, my lad? Hmmm, I like it.' Though Boden had inherited a butcher's on a row of shops in the middle of a tough estate, he mostly left it to his cheery, ruddy missus, Dora, who had in recent years piled on so much weight that her wedding ring was too tight to be worn on her finger, and her assistant, grey, skinny Joan, to sweat over dead meat. He much preferred his cluttered office on the floor above, where he spent his time bargaining over the telephone or getting lost in crosswords, having had one too many nips from his personalised hip flask. In Derek Boden's opinion, a bloodstained, stripy blue and white apron impaired the dapper image he projected when in his trademark hat, which he'd first donned in the nineteen-eighties. The black trilby not only obscured Boden's bald pate that he was most touchy about, what with 'the biz' being unforgiving and fickle, but also set off his pin-striped black suit with wide collars, affirming his credentials as a seasoned guru. Boden always left his jacket unbuttoned to cleverly spawn an air of casual sophistication, which, by way of mental association - at least in those worth knowing - emphasised that he was 'in the know', as his weekly column in the local rag was entitled.

Boden's tone deafness had never impeded him in the slightest; he knew a good-looker and, after seeing just one performance of a prospective act, gauged from the audience's reaction whether he'd regularly be able to take his cut. Of late, he'd been alarmed by the rise of a Leeds-based agency that gaudily flashed all the trimmings and said all the right things on its website, and he deemed that he needed something with that little bit extra to secure his domain. Alicia's looks said she was a contender; the crowd's reaction, which, in his experience, was slightly better than the usual fair to middling - if you subtracted her mother's sexualised shenanigans from the equation - confirmed it. Besides, hardly anybody pulls a crowd like this when money is tight.

At the bar he handed Cathy and Alicia a Bailey's each. 'Just a taste to mark the occasion.'

'I'm in?' Alicia squealed disbelievingly.

'Yes, and I'm in the business of satisfying punters - make sure your second set is a bit punchier.' It was Boden's law to show them who's the boss immediately. 'And,' he continued, remembering that a feisty member of the late Whitney Houston's fan club had dragged him to one side to register a complaint, 'your I Wanna Dance With Somebody is' - and he went verbatim - 'like letting a flea-infested mutt piss up the statue of an adored, recently departed queen, God bless her. Drop it for your next show.'

'I... I...' Alicia choked.

Boden scowled; he hadn't anticipated Alicia's sensitivity, which would ride roughshod over any kind of indebtedness she might feel. And, well, it didn't look good to so quickly wipe the smile from a pretty girl's face.

'Alicia was nervous and that was her opening song.' Cathy slammed her glass on the bar, one more wrong word, I dare you! 'People were bopping by the time she got to the chorus. Her rendition, as everybody else has pointed out, had the hallmarks of a professional.'

'Oh sure, sure,' Boden replied grovellingly. 'I was overjoyed that a Nancy Sinatra number made it, too. It's a firm favourite with my beloved wife.'

'And what did you think of the more modern songs?'

'Excellent. I've already planned a write-up in the Express.'

'You have?'

'Certainly. I can't let the unleashing of a major talent go unnoticed. I wouldn't be the man 'in the know' otherwise.' Boden unctuously chuckled and put his hand on Alicia's shoulder. 'I noticed that you've taken some photographs of this young lady doing her thing. Perhaps you'd send them to my email address, which you'll find in the Express.'

'I think I can manage that.' Cathy picked up her Bailey's; the confidence had returned to Alicia's face.

Assured that he'd got back on the right side of the pretty pair, Boden resolved to get out for the time being while the going was good. 'I'm afraid I need to speak to an associate. Enjoy your drinks, girls.' An afterthought held him up. 'Make sure you let your kid sister rest,' he said to Cathy.

'She's my daughter.'

'I never!'

'Thank you.' Cathy smiled thinly.

'No need. Just think on that I'll have plenty of work for your daughter shortly. And you' - Boden addressed Alicia - 'had best get ready. It's almost time to treat everybody to your shimmering stage prowess again.'

'I'm ready! I'm ready!'

Boden slipped through the crowd along the bar, greeting the somebodies and snubbing the nobodies with calculated precision. A shiver ran down Cathy's spine. She considered forbidding Boden from having anything to do with Alicia, before conceding that her girl had turned eighteen and could work with anyone she liked. Alicia might be tempted to do a job with murder weapons if anyone tried to intervene now her musical career seemed to have some life. And didn't Cathy have her own man to deal with? She quickly typed a text telling Michael that she loved him. She couldn't let him forget.

Alicia deigned to acknowledge her friends. They had turned up to support the launch of her career, after all, and she didn't want them saying success had gone to her head. It was her opinion, after reading between the lines of numerous gossip columns, that little people tend to whine when giants leave them behind. Alicia sashayed across the dance floor, relishing the lusty gazes and the wolf-whistles from a gang of lads who weren't good enough to touch but who could look for free. Until her calendar came out, perhaps as early as the New Year.

Her friends - at least thirty of them after a quick head count - were crammed around the tables in the far, back corner. What was the fuss? That meathead Liam Briggs! Stevie's boyfriend, Chris, looked ruffled by whatever Liam was bawling into his ear. Alicia stormed up to the brute. 'It's my show and I can have you thrown out!' Her voice was so loud that anyone in the proximity who hadn't spotted the trouble knew about it now. Liam pushed Chris away. He sheepishly back-pedalled to stand by Stevie, who grabbed her boyfriend's hand.

'I've come to cheer you on,' Liam said, after contemplating the likelihood of Alicia's claim and glancing round, measuring up the onlookers. 'I was hoping to sit with Davie but I can't see him.'

'He's...' Alicia recalled the bruised state her brother had recently come home in. Even though she was annoyed with Davie for turning down a chance to see her show - Mum had arranged for the committee to turn a blind eye to her son's lack of years - Alicia was astute enough to be cautious. 'Davie's too young to get in. He's with Dad. Are you eighteen yet, Liam?'

'The bar staff think so,' he grinned, picking up a pint pot. 'It's a shame about Davie. I was looking forward to sitting with a member of the leading showbiz family in these parts, music, films, know what I mean?'

Alicia suddenly leaned towards Liam and hissed something into his ear.

'Maybe I will, maybe I won't,' he replied, shrugging his shoulders. 'No doubt I'll see Davie around. See you later, losers.' He drained his pint and gave the 'get fucked' sign to Alicia's friends. They stared at his back until he was lost in the crowd in the direction of the toilets.

Up on the stage a scrawny, grey man in a burgundy polo neck jumper took the mic and - dush, dush - tapped it with his knuckles. Alicia recognised the committee member who Mum had persuaded to give her a chance for a drastically reduced fee. After amplifying his smoker's cough, Mr Committee requested that the artiste prepare for her second stint. 'I'd love to chat, my luvvies, but you heard him. Peace out!' Alicia's hippy V met yays, heys, saluting fists and blown kisses - a more than favourable consensus, although you never can tell with phoney bitches like Jodie Brown around. And then the singer thought on about her fifty pounds and the new outfit it would buy!

Alicia flopped into her dressing room chair - phew! - this was her life from now on. What would it feel like when TV cameras zoomed in on her? Like being in the sights of a firing squad, if her expression was anything to go by when she once more went through the stage door. At the top of the three steps her upper lip curled into a sneer - she hadn't noticed the cheesy, tinselly backdrop the first time round! It'd ruin her photographs! She'd check out the damn venues in future!

A girl with a golden smile jigged onto the stage and up to the microphone. 'Hello again, ladies and gentlemen,' she said, gazing into the stage lights to make sure she couldn't see anybody. 'Are we ready to shake it again?' The response was lukewarm and, according to tradition, Alicia repeated her question more dynamically, bowing, when in time-honoured fashion the crowd cheered and whistled. 'And I'd like to say that music is for dancing. Can some of you come on down to the floor?' If the stagehand isn't too busy tipping his ale. He wasn't. A dirty, sustained guitar chord growled from the speakers. One, two, three, four - the beat! 'Kick it!' Cathy, Jessie, Carol and Ann charged for the right to party. 'You wake up late for school, girl, you don't wanna go...'

By the time Alicia had exhausted her repertoire the crowd had drunk themselves so merry and up for it they wouldn't have minded if she was the leading pussy in the alley cats' choir. More! More! They wanted more! They wanted it now! Superstition had prevented Alicia preparing an encore. She edged to the stage's wings for a shouty consultation with the stagehand, who agreed to play the track she'd started with. On hearing its introduction, a member of the late Whitney Houston's fan club pushed her Smirnoff Ice into her friend's hand, 'Hold that!' She barged through the revellers, past the ladies and gents, and interrupted Mr Boden as he auctioned knocked-off meat by the cigarette machine. The proprietor of a sandwich bar, down an alley off the precinct, looked like winning yet again. 'She's still murdering classics!' The protector of Whitney's legacy yelled, her blue eyes blazing, her fist shaking so that her bangles glinted and rattled in Boden's flabbergasted phiz. 'Have you no taste? No shame?' she ranted.

The taxi drew up outside home and Alicia gracefully slipped out of the passenger door, while Cathy, Jessie and Carol tumbled out of both sides of the back. Ann, who had to be up early, had been picked up by her feller. The girls tittered and screamed up the garden path, recounting the night's highlights. While no one had actually asked for Alicia's signature, she'd received enough praise to turn most teenagers redder than Cathy's credit card statements. Several men - young and old - had drunkenly requested a date. More importantly, Mr Boden had said - tipping his trilby as Alicia and her mother's gang prepared to leave - that he'd dance with Alicia anytime, having dismissed a formerly noted complaint on the grounds that a certain member of the late Whitney Houston's fan club was four hits short of a compilation album. He'd necked his whiskey and promised to be in touch soon.

'We've also got infamy,' Cathy said, more soberly, as she put her key in the door. 'Let's hope our wayward Spielberg hasn't turned the house into a set for a movie about the apocalypse.'

Alicia was secretly disappointed that Davie saw fit to stay upstairs, out of the way. He was clearly awake judging by the sci-fi sound effects replicated by his TV. Nobody would sleep through that racket.

'Right girls, what's it to be? Red or white? Lager? Something a bit stiffer?'

'I'd like something stiff - it's the lump it's attached to that puts me off,' quipped Carol.

All but Alicia laughed.

'Don't you be prudish, Alicia,' giggled Jessie. 'You're a grown up dealing in the food of lurve.'

'She certainly is,' Cathy concurred, impressed by Alicia's handling of her big night's pressure. Her babe had a temper, sure, but who hadn't when you think about it? Perhaps they'd all underrated her ability and maturity. 'And on that note, you can have a drink with us. Do you want to try a wine?'

'White, please.'

'Already knows what rocks her boat. She's done it before.'

'Haven't we all?' Hee-hee-haw-haw-tee-hee!

Perhaps an hour later, when Davie felt hungry and could no longer avoid venturing downstairs, the girls' night was in full swing. Alicia had sneaked her fourth glass of Tesco's finest and was still regaling her elder companions with the story of her debut as if they hadn't been to it. 'When I sang Abba I danced like...' Her clumsy stumble as she got off the sofa alerted her mother. Shaking her head in disbelief at the near empty bottle on the floor at Alicia's feet, Cathy insisted that her young lady go steady.

'You're back,' Davie yawned, momentarily appearing in the doorway on his way to the fridge.

'Do you see what a fine brother I've got? Doesn't even ask how it went.'

'They're all the same, love,' replied fruity, sloshed Carol. 'You never met my first husband and you don't know how lucky you are for that small mercy.'

'My brother should want to know!'

'It was just a show down the local club.' Carol could no longer be bothered to hide her boredom at Alicia's suffocating attention-seeking. Alicia's presence had prevented Carol from pressing Cathy about the rumours concerning her new bloke. And it always miffed Carol to see her friend's showy little palace. How did Cathy do it? How could she afford it? 'You're a household name in this one house, lass.'

'Steady on, Carol,' chimed Jessie.

Cathy rolled her eyes on seeing her daughter's face.

'You jealous old fart! There's no wonder your husband fucked off,' Alicia yelled, tottering out of the room to confront Davie. An intense wooziness caused her to pause in the hall. It seemed to pass.

Davie was spreading Dairy Lea on cream crackers when his sister accosted him. 'You mean shit! Aren't you going to ask how it went?' Alicia hiccupped and - oh my god! - everything was spinning... She doubled over and splashed recycled wine onto the kitchen tiles.

'I guess you had your customary attack of nerves,' Davie commented, touching the faded yellow bruise over his brow. He picked up his plate and walked out. Lingering outside the room on the way to the stairs, he said, 'Mum, I think Alicia needs some assistance in the kitchen.'
Chapter Five

At the same working men's club, two days later, Johnny Jacks - unemployed, ex-union rep, forty-something husband of Marie, father-of-two, Kelly and Blake - stepped out of the gents by the front entrance still tightening up his belt.

'My word, Trev, I can smell that icy wind on you,' he declared to a cleft-lipped man in a bitty, black duffel. The man was rubbing his numb, blue hands as he came in from the cold. 'And you want to watch poor circulation when winter's...'

'Anybody else in?' The new arrival cut Johnny off. His duffel's hood remained up like he'd immediately volte-face and shift it should Johnny be the only company he'd find.

The shouts of kids outside, probably truants, were carried to them and then snatched away by the gale's bluster.

'Old Arthur, Mick, Dave, Wolfie, Hobbsy, Ken. Ian Randall...' Johnny paused, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth that he wanted to spit out. '...The good for nothing shyster is already out of his head.'

'He's taking the break up of his marriage hard. I don't expect he'll get much sympathy from you.'

The strip light above the men buzzed like it was about to go on the blink.

'It's the way he goes about things.'

Trev couldn't hold Johnny's clear blue stare. Edging towards the tap room door, he sniped, 'Nothing to do with the axe you've to grind, then?'

'I only cut my hair down to the wood.' Johnny rubbed a palm over his bristly, recently shaved scalp. 'But I'd be justified in chopping down our mutual friend.'

When the first rumblings about a major restructuring had shaken up the workforce, Ian Randall had withdrawn from the union and badmouthed it like he'd swallowed too many tabloid editorials. But it wasn't just that. Randall was likely the snake behind the venomous smear that Johnny had taken backhanders from the bosses. The more desperate things had got, the more the slur had poisoned Johnny. Now it was all over, the ex-rep cursed himself for so hopelessly, naively placing his faith in his fellow working man. In his blackest moods, he'd seethe that Randall's ilk needed putting down like stray, rabid dogs, before chastising himself for not doing something differently. What? The union reps - Johnny especially - had run themselves into the ground chasing down meetings that the company forever cancelled and rescheduled, stalling tactics that successfully undermined opposition before its roots took hold. That the scandalmongers had supported any unsubstantiated rubbish by claiming 'there's no smoke without fire' hadn't helped to save jobs, either. The GMB had been left with the mobilised power of a bus burnt out by joyriders because so many workers could so easily be persuaded that Johnny was the one torching their backsides. Since the plant's closure, Johnny's ex-workmates had regarded him like some treacherous arsonist, which more than explained Trev's hostile attitude.

In his faded denim shirt, jeans and scuffed trainers, Johnny followed Trev through to the tap room. A small assembly of men in their mid-thirties to late-forties and one old-timer were sitting around two tables in the far corner. With his palm, Johnny frustratedly sent the cue ball bouncing round the otherwise empty snooker table as he strode over to them. Trev slipped out of his duffel, hung it on a peg amongst an assortment of coats, and put on his round glasses, having slipped them from the pocket of his red and blue checked shirt. He faffed with his thinning brown hair. Acknowledging the men in the corner with a solemn nod, Trev puffed out his chest and stepped to the bar. 'Afternoon, Sandra. Pint of the usual.'

'It's gone up tuppence,' the brunette-with-grey-roots hoarsely replied as if she was losing her voice. With her back to Trev, Sandra leaned on the worktop and scribbled out a note to put in the till. The rolled up sleeves of her white blouse gave breathing space to a blurry angel tattoo on her left forearm, just above a mole that resembled a blessed dump. So her ex-husband used to say, or words to that effect.

'Again?'

'You heard me right.'

'Your prices will be going up as predictably as gas and electricity before we know it.'

'And then the rest of it. It's the world we live in.' Sandra reached for Trev's pint glass.

'The barmaid's eye-watering charms keep me coming here,' Trev acidly remarked as she turned round. He started counting silver and copper into small stacks on the bar.

Self-deprecating Sandra often opined she was a wrinkly cow with saggy udders way before her time, yet her humour also had a point like a corkscrew sabre that popped open anybody who wasn't to her taste. She'd poured many a man's sour grapes down the drain. Trev's acrid homebrew remained bottled up simply because Johnny dropped his elbows on the bar. 'A cloth, Sandra, love. Guess who's had one over?'

'Let him carry on like he did on Friday and somebody will be knocking him over, mark my words.' She tossed Johnny a dry cloth from under the bar. 'It doesn't look like he's stopped boozing all weekend. I'd be surprised if he knows what day it is.'

'Trev, here, seems to think he's justified,' Johnny said, sardonically.

'He'll swear the world is flat if you stand round long enough listening to his lip.' She whipped up Trev's money stacks and spun round to the till, knowing without looking that he'd impulsively touch his disfigurement.

When Trev got to the men with his pint of bitter, Johnny was mopping up the fizzy swamp. A chipped glass had been stood upright. Scruffy and stinking musty, his nascent, brown-grey beard making him look closer to fifty than forty, the culprit had moved away from the group and was lolling across the patched-up, red, fake leather seating under a large, rectangular window. It looked out onto a creosoted, high fence with a broken panel, through which could be seen a brick wall on the other side of an alley. The bricks were momentarily blocked from view by a passing baby's buggy and a woman in a black coat. Facing inwards, his eyes closed, Randall muttered about knowing who'd done it.

'We fucking saw who did it,' snapped curly, blond Mick Weevil, wiping his knee with his woolly, white, blue and yellow Leeds United hat. Lager had dripped from the table top onto Mick's tracksuit bottoms, clean on that morning.

'How do, lads?' Trev mustered a sociable smile.

So, I'm right, Johnny thought; he's another who thinks I'm bent. Another who measures me as an enemy.

'I'd be swimmingly fine if it wasn't for Randall,' grumbled Mick, affectedly, like a character from a cosy sitcom who'd found himself in the wrong world. 'The daft fucking lummox,' he added, reverting back to type.

The others chuckled as they greeted Trev.

'Now, now, neither spilled milk nor beer,' said bald Arthur. The OAP tapped his fingers on his walking-stick resting across his knees. Nobody had been surprised to see the old trooper's slightly flabby frame shuffle in through the door, despite the appalling weather. Indeed, he'd taken the opportunity to boast that the thick, baggy brown jumper under his overcoat had cost just three pounds from the Heart Foundation. 'Randall's in a bigger mess than he could make crashing a brewery van,' the old fellow speculated with his peculiar, vaguely owl-like charm. 'A pint is nothing in the grand scheme of things.'

'And Arthur has got a direct line to the great brewer in the sky. Amen.' Tubby Hobbsy crossed himself.

'You're not funny, lad. Wipe that snotty nose of yours.'

Sitting down on a stool, Trev put his lips to his bitter's frothy head. 'There's a hint of the pipe cleaner in that,' he moaned, with an expression like he'd licked a battery. He got back up. 'I'll see what Sandra has to say about that!'

'Same fucking thing as she did last week.' Wolfie had been rolling a cigarette and cussing the wind that had nearly turned his moustache to icicles on his short trek to the club. It'd be a devil to light up, even in the smoking shelter. Sticking the cigarette behind his ear, he said, 'Drinking like that on a morning isn't going to put anything right, Ian. Don't you think your bender has gone on long enough? We lost our jobs that day, you know.'

'That's not it, though,' Hobbsy muttered under his breath so the scorned husband wouldn't hear him.

'Pfft!' Ian's bleary eyes came unstuck. He peered round at his friends as if they were strangers in a bad dream. 'I...Pah! Pfft!'

'That's exactly your problem, Randall,' said Johnny Jacks. 'You're a cunting windbag with nothing else to offer.'

'Give him a break, Johnny,' said Hobbsy, squinting.

'Like the break you lot have given me with your slander? I think we need to have this out, once and for all.'

'It's finished, Johnny. We realise you did your best.'

'We do?'

'Nobody said his best is good enough.'

'Don't you start, Ken! You contradicted everything I said at the time...'

'I still want to know...'

'I've told you everything there is to know. You needed a ballot and a strike. I walked all over the plant and discussed it with everybody. A union is as strong as the will and the bond of its members - don't blame me for every weak link!'

'You were the fucking weakest link.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Look at how they gave you the runaround.'

'And I want to know what good a strike would've done?'

'What good did not striking do?'

'Shafted if you do, fucked if you don't!'

'Remember what they did with our holiday pay the year before last?'

'A job with dire holidays is better than no job. What were we paying subs to the union for?' Wolfie licked his lips, anticipating a feast of provocative dishes served cold, just for the hell of it. 'I bet Johnny got a little extra on his redundancy cheque, didn't he, Ian?'

'Do you see this?' Johnny held up his fist. 'I'll put it right through your teeth one of these days, Wolfie.'

'Typical union bully boy,' said Wolfie with a goading smirk.

'Easy, easy, chaps,' old Arthur interrupted. 'Johnny did more to save your jobs than the rest of you put together. As it happens, I've seen the details of his redundancy pay. Most of you got more than he did. So, according to your way of thinking, what does that say about you?'

'We're not talking about us. We're talking about him.'

'We had to do our worst!' Johnny shot up onto his feet, his fists clenched by his sides.

'Something bothering you, Jacko? Guilt, by any chance?'

Johnny angrily finished off his pint, beer spilling from the sides of his glass onto his denim shirt. 'Anybody else got anything to say? Then say it outside!' His nicotine-stained finger pointed to the door.

Silence fell over the room. Johnny's worst critics knew they'd let him do their fighting in the plant while tying his hands behind his back. It was true; they should have gambled on a strike ballot. Their wishy-washy stumbling along with fingers-crossed had been a certain loser. And shouldn't they really pity Johnny? His sideburns had turned white as the most delirious allegations about him spread like an infection, jaundicing everyone's view. But someone had to be blamed and who else fit the bill? They'd never set eyes on the real perpetrators, who'd bossed everybody from overseas.

Just old Arthur escaped Johnny's menacing glare. All but Wolfie and Mick looked sheepishly into their drinks. The strapping six-footers had once spent half an hour trying to kill each other over a card-dealing dispute, only to discover they were so tough and handy they cancelled each other out. In the end, exhausted, they'd dropped to their seats as if the clang signalling last orders was the final bell ringside. No one moved to raise a victor's hand, and as soon as the combatants got their puff back, they'd jested about their bust noses, split lips and black eyes. Supping up, old Arthur, who usually had no time for bar-brawling, had commented that their contest had been worth a twenty pound ticket. And they were damn lucky a pile of contraband tobacco had been delivered behind the bar an hour earlier or someone would have been on the blower to the law. But whether any of the assembled men now threw or pulled punches, they had to admit it: despite everything they'd said and his tiresome political waffle, Johnny meant well.

Even Randall, as wrecked as he was, sensed the tension was dangerously close to breaking point. His final confrontation with Cathy had been enough to last him for the rest of his life. Unsteadily getting to his feet, slapping his arse to keep a beat, he tunelessly sang, 'You have been courting Mary Jane/You are bound to catch your death of cold...'

'Don't be dancing over here and tipping our drinks over!' Mick shouted, mightily relieved at the distraction.

'Then we will have to bury you...'

'Get out of it!'

'Then the worms will come and eat you up/Then the ducks will come and eat up the worms/Then we will go and eat up the ducks...'

'Jesus wept. Just look at that.'

'I'm trying not to listen to it!'

'Then we will all have eaten you...'

'Give over, you great clot,' Wolfie laughed, figuring Johnny's bemused mush meant the critical moment had passed.

Wolfie skimmed a beer mat at Ian while he bowed at non-existent applause. He flopped down onto his seat among the men with an inane grin, as if he'd crooned away his worldly cares into the bargain.

'Hey Randall, Ken was telling me your Alicia did a turn over the weekend. Isn't that right?'

'She wasn't too bad. Don't know where she gets her looks from though.'

'My cheating, no good wife! She can...' Ian's face scrunched up as he struggled to overcome the boozy mind-fog he'd created to dull his pain. 'She can drive herself to bankruptcy, yes, that's what she can do. I'm not going over the edge.'

'Don't bank on it - the state you're in.'

'Bankruptcy? What's this?'

'The crap...' Ian said with a curt flip of his wrist, as if it was so obvious questions only deserved waving away.

'You're not telling us she's got that stuff in the house on credit?' Hobbsy was on the edge of his seat. 'Chuff me! We thought you'd been keeping a lottery win quiet. Wait until my Colleen hears about it!'

'You can't just blame Cathy,' piped up Wolfie who, from time to time, felt a rekindling of hostilities from back in the day. It could still rankle him that Cathy had made the mistake of preferring Ian's affections. 'How many times have you bragged about deals on this, that and everything else? You've been in a position to...'

Ian wasn't listening. He'd decided his laces needed tying and, resurfacing, banged his head on the underside of the table top. The others had grabbed their drinks the moment he'd bent down. His upturned empty rolled along the table and fell to the sticky carpet. Luckily, it didn't smash. Laughter erupted when the whimpering drunk clutched his skull as if he'd knocked a hole in it. Arthur wasn't amused, though. 'Those bloody plastic cards,' he protested, 'getting the young up to their eyeballs in it for junk they don't need.'

'Some of them can't live without plastic,' said Johnny, eyeing Randall with the embarrassed contempt reserved for jokers you sometimes laugh at, but never with. 'These young kids who are paid next to nothing, I feel for them. They have to get up to here in debt just to set up a place to live. And it's deliberate - an ideological design. They get such a fear of losing their jobs, they're practically enslaved. But these folks,' he said, glancing at Ian again, 'who get the next gadgety bull after the last new fangled claptrap, well, they're the gluttonous dupes of a bent system.'

'Don't fucking start with that talk,' Wolfie growled. If it came to fisticuffs, so be it; Johnny's politicking got too complicated, especially when you'd had a few. As long as they paid their bills, put some snap on the table, could drive a motor, and had some beer money, then that was good enough. True, the inflated cost of living meant it was getting more difficult with each passing week... 'We paid union subs, and you did nothing. Now we aren't earning to pay any subs, you start telling us you want to change the world. I suppose you'll do it out of the good of your heart.'

'Wolfie, whether you like it or not, you've got to learn to let a man have his say', said Arthur, hammering the rubbery end of his walking-stick on the floor like a judge with his gavel.

'Don't encourage him, gramps. And I'm having my say.'

'There's some truth in what he says, and I've always dealt with the truth. My grandson, James, and his young lass, they've had to...'

'We know the world is full of shit and it always has been. But we've come out to whet our whistles.'

'But, don't you see?' asked Johnny, warming up for his favourite subject. 'That's why nothing changes anymore. People don't get involved.'

'It's a waste of time. They're all out to line their own pockets. Expenses and bonuses, that's what it's about.'

'And that's exactly why people have to do something. Corruption will rule as long as people are apathetic...'

'Oh Jesus! Not this lecture...'

'Look at the bankers and the free-market Muppets! Thought they were the masters of the universe and bang! The global economy crashes down. Wealth never really trickled down, oh no! But the bloody tab is passed down.'

'Look,' said Wolfie, 'it's me - Dave Wolfe - that's called Wolfie.'

'And?'

'He thinks,' chortled Arthur, 'that it makes him the real law-abiding, tax-paying citizen who can snuff out power to the people baloney. You watch too much stuff on Gold, Wolfie.'

'Enough of this gobbledygook. What they need to do is sort out immigration. Simples.'

'And cause a shortage of doctors and nurses...'

'Kebab shops, corner shops, taxi-drivers, filthy scroungers...'

'That's the point! They're paying tax into our coffers.'

'The filthy scroungers?'

'Some of you need to change the paper you buy.'

'I don't believe a word I read.'

'You've a habit of repeating it though. And any rubbish you hear on the television.'

'What rubbish?'

'Yesterday you claimed my doctor is an illegal immigrant.'

'I've heard that he is, but not on the fucking telly!'

'An illegal wouldn't be able to have a surgery, fool! Besides, no human being is illegal.'

'What are prisons for?'

'For people who commit criminal offences. It's their actions...'

'You'll be telling us that murderers and terrorists are misunderstood next.'

'You have to resort to putting idiot words into people's mouths.'

'As Johnny says,' Arthur said, commandeering everyone's attention by rapping the crook of his walking stick on the table, 'there's far more to it than the issue of immigration.'

'Arthur, I'd have thought you'd have learned your lesson from the miners' strike. Where the fuck did that get you?'

'We won the previous one,' Arthur said, belching. He'd have liked the support of his own generation - they knew more than these jessies - but the ravages of time and the bitter wind had seen off all survivors but one. His arthritis was quietened by the grass that the kid next door sold him on the quiet. 'One loss shouldn't mean you're finished for good. And a loss doesn't mean we were wrong about everything. It remains the case that working people don't get anything by relying on the goodwill of the rich.'

'Some people have things these days.'

'Aren't they lucky? All the technology and wealth in the civilised world, and some people have a few things. Mostly on credit.'

'Be as sarcastic as you like; the same old story won't ever change. The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer. You just get on and make the best of your lot.'

'Some lot you've got right now,' said Arthur.

'And that's not the point,' Johnny forcibly stressed.

'So what is?' Wolfie asked, incensed, his nostrils flaring.

'Another same old story and then some.'

'Huh?'

'Look, for example, Ian and his family represent donkeys...'

'Hee-haw!'

'Ha ha!'

'You're too quick to resort to personal insults, Johnny.'

'It's nothing personal.'

'Calling him a donkey is a compliment?'

'Hear me out. The carrot is the materialistic dream they've been chasing...'

'Get to the point quicker than you did last time.'

'Ok! Hold it! A question: after chasing the dream sold to them by the moneymen and their politicians, where do the Randall family find themselves?'

The men fell silent. This was a subject too touchy for throwaway quips.

'Go on. Get it over with,' Wolfie ordered, after taking a draught of beer.

'A dead end street.'

'Aw my gawd...'

'He's a laugh-a-minute, this one.'

'Why lead donkeys down a dead end street? Idiot!'

'The elite...'

'Oh, the elite! I suppose you've met them. Did they tell you they've a grudge against Ian because he said you were fiddling?'

'That's what it's about!'

'Don't be ridiculous. Johnny doesn't have to meet them...'

'Arthur, I wish you wouldn't encourage him.'

'Arthur's as bad as he is.'

'I was saying,' insisted Johnny. 'While everybody has been distracted...'

'You say it every fucking time we come out, distracting us from our beer!'

'So tell me what playing by their rules has done for Randall?'

'Shut it!'

'Answer me!'

'Give it...'

'Answer me!'

They grudgingly studied Ian who'd been busy wallowing in self-pity. Realising he was under the microscope, he grunted something obscene, glanced over at the bar, and furtively produced a small bottle of vodka from inside his denim jacket. 'Cheers monkeys,' he said, and took a swig.

'Ian's problems are nothing to do with any of that stuff.'

'Don't be so sure. Life is one big web, and everything is connected. In this world your economic status influences everything you can and can't do. Nothing is entirely unrelated to money.'

'So now you're blaming an enormous spider?' Mick facetiously sneered, playing to the gallery. 'Or just telling us, yawn, that money makes the world go round?'

'I'm saying that, if you live by the rules on our side of the fence, you're always going to be cheated or struggle. Ian's arrived at bloody obliteration because he was never destined for anywhere else.'

'He stinks like he hasn't had a wash in a week,' said Hobbsy, 'I'll grant you that.'

'Obliteration's never a bad place to be, with or without soap and water,' laughed Mick.

'I second that!' Trev raised his hand.

'I'm heading to obliteration before I walk out of here today,' grinned Wolfie.

'I've got my ticket,' chuckled Hobbsy.

'If, as you say,' Mick went on, buoyed by their support, 'the odds are stacked against us - and I agree, they've always been against us - what are you and Arthur going to do about it? Put up or shut up.'

'Hear, hear,' Hobbsy thumped the table. 'There are so many anti-union laws they've practically banned working people from politics. Parliament's always been about ripping us off. It's no good going on while we're supping.'

'And what's the point of getting chucked in prison? You've got some harebrained ideas, Johnny Jacks. And you're avoiding my question. I said, what are you two going to do about it?'

'Nothing can be done by people in isolation.'

'And what if we can't be bothered to do anything because it's a waste of time, whatever your cause is?'

'Occupy Shit Street.'

'More will participate, the more that set an example.'

'There. We've sorted it. There's nothing you can do. Let's change the subject.'

'The horse racing is due on. Get the remote from behind the bar.'

'Changing the subject doesn't...'

'There's fuck all you can do! Forget it!'

Johnny snatched his tobacco pouch from the table. The debate always, always, always went the same way! It got him so he could barely tolerate the sight of them. The worst thing was that he'd read up on it, and understood it, but he could never break from the same simplistic circles whenever he tried to explain. And it didn't make him feel any better to concede that they were partly right; he understood their sense of powerlessness. Hadn't he witnessed the impossibility of securing negotiations with the company? Hadn't he walked through Knightsbridge after a protest march against government cuts and witnessed police cars everywhere, ensuring that austerity never touched the occupants of the establishment houses who nobody had threatened in any case? And yet think of the mines, mills and factories of just over a century ago! Working conditions hadn't improved without pressure. Yes, progress is always possible if people understand they can never afford to stop pushing. Everything had slipped far enough when inequality rivalled that of the Victorian mire. Get lost sirs, we don't want any more of that! Johnny thundered round the snooker table towards the exit. He needed a cigarette in the solitude of the shelter outside or else he'd go up in flames!

'Don't forget your coat. It's fucking freezing out there.'

Johnny disappeared through the door without looking back.

'Bloody waste of space,' Wolfie said, shaking his head.

'I'm not sure that doesn't more apply to you.' Arthur got up with an empty glass. 'Some of us need to take a long, hard look at ourselves.'

'And what's that supposed to mean, old-timer?'

'It doesn't take much of a man to talk defeat over a pint. If everything is hunky-dory, why don't you get up off your arse and get a job? I always worked before I retired.'

'Give over, old man. You know the state of things out there at the best of times.'

'Remarkable! It's different now.'

'I've been redundant for about a fortnight. I've always worked to keep my family. You don't begrudge a man a drink, surely?'

'I don't, as it happens. But I begrudge you calling a man who stuck his neck out for you.'

'We love Johnny, relax. We just wish he wouldn't talk so often.'

'Bah!'

They insisted on chipping in for a taxi when the retired coalminer and odd-job man had downed his customary four bitters. He left licking his lips at the prospect of a tin of Irish stew and a crusty bread roll. 'You're in union with yourself now, Jacks,' Wolfie laughed, blackly.

'Why do I get the feeling you like it that everything went wrong?'

'Me?' Wolfie opened his arms as if pleading his innocence. 'Never, guv'nor.'

He'd overcooked it. Not a smile cracked amongst the men. One day, thought Johnny, me and you, Mr Wolfe, will have more than words.

'Get away with you all,' Wolfie said, sniggering uncertainly. 'You know I'm winding Johnny up.'

'Let it drop,' said Hobbsy, quietly. 'Watch the race.'

'Well said.'

'Yes indeedy!' Wolfie rubbed his hands together. 'Let's have some winners for the boys.'

For the sake of his sanity, Johnny shut out the commentary from Chepstow and the men's accompanying blather; he became ever aware of the chilling wind whistling through the gutters on the club's roof. One more creamy pint led to another. His thoughts became darker, so that if they could be visualised, a leaden, sub-zero sky would extend from horizon to horizon, sending snow that might never thaw tumbling onto the lives below. Every winter was one of discontent, somewhere. The sight of Ian Randall clumsily smiling as he slipped his bottle of vodka from his jacket put the temptation of whiskey Johnny's way. He quietly, moodily sipped each measure, savouring its fire, while the men caroused, keeping loneliness at bay. The day had no other meaning, and it began to blur.

Ken Pryor jumped up, rocking the table, sloshing more beer and whoop-whooping. A Bridge Too Far had left the favourite of the 4-30 for dead. 'Get the boys a round, Sandra. I'll be back shortly.'

With admiring wonder, they watched Ken wobble along a straight line to the coat rack. Bill Hill's wasn't five minutes down the road.

'What did he have?' asked Mick, several screwed up betting slips beside his half-empty lager.

'A pony at fifteen to one.'

'Where does the fucker get his luck?'

'Your guess is as good...'

Thud! All heads turned. Ian Randall was flat on his face. Trev and Johnny were the first to the groaning sot, pulling him to his feet. When they plonked him on a seat he wiped his nose and stared uncomprehendingly at the red smear on the back of his hand. A bloodied nose seemed to be the worst of the damage.

'You didn't do that, Johnny, did you?' Wolfie rolled his shoulders intimidatingly. 'Full of spirits as well as your usual spirit.'

'I was sat down, you fool,' Johnny replied, tottering.

'Anyone see it?'

'I didn't see Randall go over, but Johnny was as he says,' said Trev, reluctantly.

Johnny tried to pat Trev's back but he took a step back.

'Anything else you're going to accuse me of?'

'Take it easy,' Wolfie grinned. 'I knew you hadn't done it really.'

'Really?'

'Jolly good company and all that...'

Trying to stand up, Ian floundered into Johnny's arms.

'He needs to go to the crapper,' Mick explained.

'And then he needs a taxi.' Trev put an arm round Ian so he could lead him to the gents.

'Where's he living?' asked Johnny.

'His brother's place over, god, where is it?'

'I know it.' Johnny had just enough to cover a ride to the next town. 'I'll book a cab.'

It took three attempts to get the correct number on his mobile. Frigging thing. Bloody booze.

On his return, Ken announced, 'There's a taxi for Randall outside. His skin is full, I take it.'

'More than,' said Johnny, slugging the whiskey from Ken's celebratory round. For a few seconds, Johnny went dizzy and he lurched into Ian, who somehow managed to keep them both upright. 'What a pair we make,' Johnny mumbled resentfully, untangling himself from Ian's limbs. Ian continued to press a toilet roll swab to his hooter.

'Cheers for the whiskey, Ken.'

'You leaving?'

'Breaking your heart, am I, Wolfie?'

'Whatever will I do?' Wolfie amiably laughed but his eye was hard, like a diamond on a dagger's hilt.

Still swabbing his nose, Ian uttered gibberish as Johnny packed him into the back of the taxi. 'How much is it?' he asked the driver. 'I'll pay up front.'

'Six quid. I'll want money to clean the cab if he bleeds everywhere or if he's sick.'

'See his brother at the other end.'

'That's not how I operate.'

'I'm not paying for something that hasn't happened. He's in the back now. Are you going to haul him out?'

'Tosspot.'

'Laters,' said Johnny, unsure whether the insult was directed at him or Ian, and, what's more, he didn't care either way.

The black hackney accelerated down the street as Johnny zipped up his brown, leather bomber jacket. He started to walk into the biting wind, swaying from side to side.
Chapter Six

Cock-a-doodle-do! Get up stoopid you!' Like a horror show clown Dan rattled the curtains along their rail, letting in rays of lousy daylight that evilly poked Ian's achy, hooded eyes. Working out that big bro' had stomped into the kitchen wasn't supposed to require genius - pans clattered and the radio found its louder-than-life voice, 'Reaching out, touching me, touching youuuuuu...'

'Dear God or whoever,' Ian muttered, his lips barely moving, 'let some crazy neighbour hammer down the wall and plug the effing thing right up Dan's...' On second thoughts, Mr Almighty, cancel that: wasn't Ian's head already pounding like a maniac had assaulted him? Weren't sizzling fat and salty bacon smells dangerously close to dragging him by the nose into the land of the living dead? Groan. Not another day of zombiedom.

A dull crack and an angry hiss indicated an egg had slithered from its shell into the frying pan. Ian's stomach churned to think of the egg's snotty texture, though his stiff neck needed some sort of lubricant. He'd nodded off upright on the sofa and now, when he tried to put his head down, something cold, hard and angular was in his way. His blind fingers hesitantly explored it. The open toolbox \- it had been idle on the sofa the day he moved in. Even with its lid closed, it was too uncomfortable to use as a pillow. Ian rubbed his eyes and stretched with the zeal of a jack-in-box on a knackered spring. 'Turn that frigging radio off.' The bark of authority in his voice surprised him. In an instant only the sizzle of the frying pan reached his ears. No doubt Dan was creased up, holding in his laughter and turning a shade of first blood. Horror show clown? How apt.

Though his reflection in the dead TV screen was murky, Ian knew he looked as terrible as he felt - hair and beard by Ug the caveman, watery, bloodshot eyes courtesy of Hammer films. There was little chance he'd left a hair of any cheapo mongrel in the fridge, and summoning the will to go walkies to an offy might do for him. Help! echoed through his thick head, though he couldn't figure who'd shouted.

The TV and DVD player were tucked in a corner of the room on a dusty, silver stand that also supported a wonky row of empty Beck's bottles. And any resemblance to conventional homemaking ended there. Slowly oxidising nuts, bolts, spanners, wrenches, sockets and grimy, half-crushed boxes were scattered over the bare, oil-stained floorboards. In several places the plaster had crumbled away from the walls. Dirty greyish-blue, they hadn't had a lick of paint in a long time. A sketchy diagram of a disassembled motorbike had been chalked in red and green on the smoothest surface; two-way arrows demonstrated how the components fit together. The sketch overlooked an authentic, half-assembled Harley-Davidson, ignominiously balanced on bricks instead of wheels behind the tatty, tweed sofa. Oily fingerprints were daubed over its chrome tank like a confession that the classic machine had been off the road for criminally long months, soon to add up to two years. So much for Dan's dream of restoring it and cruising around America, Henry Fonda-style.

Bar cobwebs in the corners, two of the bedrooms had been empty until Ian took one. Dan's efforts to make his guest feel at home consisted of inflating a borrowed air mattress and throwing a duvet over it. The stripy, red and blue duvet cover was greasy like a gigantic rag for cleaning engine parts. Ian's clothes largely remained in the deluxe sports bag he'd packed a few days after everything had fallen apart, though an untidy pile of sweaty stuff was growing in a corner. The third bedroom, secured by a great, chunky padlock on an oak door, was where Ian understood Dan kept his shotgun. Much too irresponsibly, perhaps. Many people would say, having seen the grime encrusted kitchen, that they didn't know how anyone could inhabit such a hovel. And Dan didn't live in it, spending his time at the flat of his girlfriend, mysterious Jane who Ian had never met. So, until most recently, a burglar could have sawn through the padlock at his leisure to grab the shooter. Unless, of course, the hypothetical crook entered the property through the window of that very room.

Dan pushed a dented, silver foil tray under Ian's nose. Two white pills, a steaming black coffee and a bacon and egg sarnie leaking runny yolk and tomato ketchup. 'There you go, sunshine.'

A sip of the hot coffee helped the painkillers down. 'Do I have to?' Ian pulled a face at the sarnie like a sweet-toothed kid eyeing boiled cabbage.

'I haven't been to the shop and back and then fried it up for nothing. You looked so out of it when I came in, I thought you were a goner. Get it down you.'

Though Dan and Ian shared the same chiselled bone structure, wavy brown locks and grey-blue eyes, the former's complexion was more rugged and leathery, a consequence of working outdoors on building sites for years. Whenever he removed his top, Dan flaunted a bulging, toned physique and an immaculate tattoo on his back of a skeleton from hell riding a roaring, blazing chopper. There was no point arguing with a brother like Dan. And the sandwich, which Ian nibbled at first, was actually just what the doc ordered. Dan waited until his sibling took heartier bites before announcing, 'Ma and pa phoned to make their expected enquiries.'

'Uh-huh. And you told her what?'

'That you'll tell her everything in person. I've arranged to drop you off mid-afternoon. You've been invited for tea.'

'You're having me on.'

'Afraid not, brother. You're going to get your skanky hide in the shower and make yourself look and smell half-human. That includes a shave. How about that? You can't fall over in this place forever. I'm thinking of selling up.'

'When?' Would bad news ever stop beating Ian round the head?

'Only thinking,' Dan shrugged, non-committally. 'I ran out of work in the middle of last week. These times are no good for self-employed bricklayers. It's looking like I'll have to do this place up, cash in, and officially move to Jane's. Luckily, I got it so cheap in the housing crash years back I can make a killing.' Dan flexed his muscles under his long-sleeved, tight black top and threw a left-right combination at his shadow. 'Who did you have a punch up with?'

'What?'

'Your nose is caked with dry blood.'

'I... ' Ian remembered meeting up with Wolfie and Mick Weevil in the club. Then the others arrived. They'd ridiculed that union fool, Johnny Jacks... Had he lashed out when Ian was too out of it to defend himself? The others must have beaten him off? What an arse! '...Gave as good as I got.'

'By accidentally butting your opponent when you fell over?' Dan snatched the empty tray from Ian's hands. 'Shower, chump!'

After Dan's grimy, garage-like dwelling, and Cathy's keep off the exhibits, mock palace, the spick and span humility of his parents' abode might have made a heartening change, except Ian wasn't in any shape to brush off his mother's probing about home affairs. Trust big bro'; he just couldn't resist rerunning their childhood one more time, dishing up the same getting-you-done-dirt that Alicia and Davie regularly tried to force down each other's throats. And how are the kids? Ian really couldn't say. He'd so quickly become accustomed to wobbling insensibly round life's difficulties that straight dealing seemed to be something he'd done... A quite surreal intuition that he was surfacing from a deep coma provoked the alarming notion that maybe he'd gone a little insane of late... Bloody damn Dan! Mother would try to bully Ian's demons out of him or, in her attempt, prod him that bit closer to the edge. The tension in the room stretched like an abrading elastic tightrope over a wide, heart-stoppingly deep canyon, the lone link between new and old worlds.

Mother cantankerously dusted her humble heirlooms and the ornaments she'd collected over a lifetime of sifting through second-hand goods. They crowded the window-sills, the wall unit, the mantelpiece with a maudlin, Victorian-like sentimentality that had never ceased to give Ian the willies. Mother thrived in junk shops, charity shops, jumble sales and at car boot sales as if the present is a strange country where they do nothing but sell overpriced rubbish. It wasn't without significance that she furiously elbow-greased the brass likeness of her Lord on a crucifix, repositioning him on the mantelpiece to the immediate right of the carriage clock. Time to watch over souls was her cryptic sermon's gist, if her son wasn't mistaken.

Despite his perspiring brow and sore brain, Ian found some consolation in the knowledge that Mother couldn't stop time - freedom beckoned in a few hours. And yet that was a problem in itself; for now that Ian's nuclear family and 'prospects' had imploded, he hadn't a clue how to spend his days. Like an institutionalised man on the 'wrong' side of the institution's walls, he was learning the hard way that few cope with an outsider's role. Nevertheless, he wasn't going to conform to any throwback nonsense of Mother's.

'That new?' Ian mumbled, trying to throw the old girl. Her ambition to unearth a forgotten treasure that would convert into hard cash, justifying the schmaltzy and spiritual value she afforded her collection, had increased twofold since her retirement from the care home up Halfpenny Lane. 'It looks like its worth something.'

She looked at him like he'd put his foot in it.

'The china Virgin Mary,' he said, warily.

'Cathy bought it for my birthday several years ago.'

Great move, pea-brain.

'Let me get this clear in my mind,' Mother started, as if what scant information Ian had so far related was priceless for the most unbelievably wrong reason. 'Cathy kicked you out after you'd lost your job. Correct?'

'Not exactly,' Ian replied, squirming.

'What exactly?'

Looking into his mother's face - at her fading blue eyes with dark, hollow rings, her crumpled, sagging skin, her flyaway white hair - Ian was shocked by the extent of her aging. Back in the day, when he and Dan were boys and before that, she'd have been considered a fine-looking woman. Young or old, it had always been hard to tell her anything.

'You'll have to tell us some time,' she insisted, her spirit anything but frail.

'What does it matter?'

'What a stupid question!'

'She's been seeing someone else,' Ian said emphatically, yet looking away, anywhere. The brown suede of his right trainer was stained with a splodge of blood from his dripping nose of yesterday afternoon. Or had it kicked off last night? How and when had he got home?

'How do you know?' Mother demanded, her arms akimbo. Her apron was a memento from York Minster. Ian felt akin to a former occupant of York Castle Prison.

'I just know.'

'How?'

'Alicia let slip.'

'I can't believe my ears! How did Alicia know about it?'

'Let it go. I'm sick of it.'

'You shouldn't have married her. She was always a self-serving strumpet. Didn't I say it at the time, Richard?'

Dad's shorn grey bonce, creased forehead and black-rimmed specs appeared over his Daily Mirror like he was reconnoitring from a trench. 'We thought you made a lovely couple.' He glanced at the happy wedding photo on the buttermilk wall to the right of his armchair. 'It's a crying shame. That's life sometimes. Ian has to move on.'

'And our Dan tells us what a fine job he's making of doing just that. Where did Dan shoot off to? And don't contradict me! I knew she was trouble. I put a brave face on it for the sake of peace.'

'Her dad was a fine chap who had time for everybody. Her mother, so they say, was a pea in the same pod. It can't be helped that Ian and Cathy's marriage didn't work out, and shouting about it isn't going to fix it.'

'Is that all you've to say about it? And it hardly matters if her parents waited on the Queen of Sheba - Cathy isn't anyone's idea of a perfect wife!'

'There's no such thing as perfection in marriage.' With that, Dad ducked behind his newspaper and left Ian to face the inevitable barrage. What about the kids' welfare? Have you seen a solicitor? Does she expect to keep the house and everything in it? You make her think again or I'll do it for you! Start with me and she'll wish that she hadn't!

'That,' said Dad, dropping his paper to his lap, 'is exactly the attitude that will make things worse. Caring too much and going about it the wrong way brings on disaster. We've got to let them...'

'Ian needs my help and he's got it!'

'He hasn't asked for any help.' Dad got up.

'And where are you off to?'

'Jester needs exercise. Come on, boy, time for walkies.'

Jester the cocker spaniel sprang from his basket, excitedly getting under Dad's feet as they left the room. Mother flung her duster at the folded newspaper in the armchair when the back door softly closed a moment later. 'And are you going to tell me who he is? Is he going to finish off bringing up the kids? And if you think that's a bad idea, and you should, what are you going to do about it? Those kids need their real dad, and that's you! And nobody knows that better than me!'

Mother's own father, a harsh, gin-soaked miner, had died of hypothermia when he'd fallen into a ditch and knocked himself unconscious; the accident followed a heavy drinking session one December night when hell itself had frozen over. Jimmy's widow interpreted her wayward husband's demise as celestial retribution, and from then on Mrs Martha Speight passionately embraced her hitherto foundering Protestantism, filling any gaps in her bible learning with the gospel according to the superstitions, myths and legends of folklore. A gossip with a tongue of fire and brimstone throughout her life, at eighty years of age Martha harangued all callers to her terraced house after becoming convinced the devil in many guises was stalking her. A magpie frequenting the bird table in her poky yard had stoked the flames of wild irrationality. Martha's poverty, the morals she preached, and a traditional girls' school education had imprinted a strict, parochial outlook on her four daughters - Ian's mother's most advanced views edged just beyond the portrayal of gender roles in the Famous Five books she read in the nineteen-fifties. That decade had begun with her father's funeral in a snowy cemetery, a scene that most deeply affected June Speight's five year old mind. Nonetheless, the scared, tiny waif grew into a dependable and industrious woman, qualities that, despite her neurotic edge, attracted Ian's cordial, fun-loving father, who'd grown up a few terraces away. June's principles had stolidly guided their marriage around any obstacle that it encountered, albeit that her Richard had often needed a blind eye and a deaf ear to go on her detours. The birth of their children and then their grandchildren brought to the fore June's tenderness and patience; she'd entertained Alicia and Davie for hour upon hour when they were little angels, compensating to some degree for the absence of Cathy's mother and father following their premature journey to the pearly gates. Not that the kids fully appreciated their grandmother or her standards now they had hit their teens.

June's sense of self-sacrifice eventually tempered her fiery outrage. After warning her son about that 'devil drink', she got busy in the kitchen, determined to cook a roast beef dinner that would make her menfolk drool. Ian, who might have insisted on helping out another time, waited in the edgy, delicate peace of the room, too wary of re-sparking her ire to ask for a drink to slake his dehydration. It was a measure of her distress that she'd neglected to offer one.

Between his thumb and forefinger, Ian nursed his sore nose. That effing Johnny Jacks! A text message was quickly despatched to the big man Wolfie: 'Wot u do to Johnny?'

'??? Last saw of him he put u in taxi after u fell. Drunken bums r us, lol,' Wolfie directly replied.

Rather than suffer a shameful beating, Ian had wrongfully blamed the man who'd been out to help him. Again. Didn't Ian have to face it? The bloody awful fact that he could be a most rotten judge of character. Johnny really had tried his damnedest, not that it was ever going to be enough - the company's decisions were final, no room for u-turns. That said, Ian couldn't absolve himself. He remembered how Dad, no, the whole family, had struggled through the year long strike back in the day. Dad would be ashamed and angry to he hear about his son's recent behaviour. Thank God he hadn't walked through a picket line! It was enough that Ian had stirred trouble at work while being utterly blind to his problems at home. In the light he currently saw his life in, the photos of him, Cathy and the kids that remained mounted on his parents' walls exhibited conniving smiles and fake, melodramatic hugs rather than what they had once actually been. Ian was more convinced than ever that he'd lived a lie. And such a thought, whether true or false, is volatile and dangerous if it goes unchallenged.

Dad returned and reclaimed his armchair with an affirmative nod; the worst was over, at least as far as his dearest was concerned. Ian could see Dan in their father, and, because of his and Dan's brotherly likeness, he wondered if he'd be a ringer for the old fellow in his own senior years. A little gnarled, pot-bellied, dusty even, Richard Randall visually epitomised the working man whose labours were behind him. A collier until redundancy had opened up a diverse career founded on contractual insecurity and shitty tasks, he'd nevertheless often said he'd been luckier than many he knew because, for the decade or so up to his retirement, he'd pulled on a train guard's uniform. Even when Dad's modest expectations regarding good fortune were taken on board, Ian suspected that recent events had seen him drop into the ranks of the hapless 'many'. As if to confirm it, black and tan Jester sniffed distrustfully round Ian's ankles, licking the splodge of blood on his suede trainer. Not entirely won over by the taste, the pooch padded over to his wicker basket alongside Dad's armchair and curled up.

Under a dizzying wave of day-after nausea, Ian grunted in acknowledgement when Dad outlined the route he and his faithful, four-legged friend took to the overgrown waste ground. 'Not too good,' he managed to get out in reply to the old man's question about Dan's motorcycle restoration.

'Thought it might stall,' Dad grinned, pun very much intended. 'Dan reminds me of a train-driver I regularly worked with. He was spot on up and down tracks that were laid for him, but when he needed to get off to pave the way for his grand ideas, well, he was as much use as a map of Yorkshire in Lancashire.' Dad thoughtfully sucked on his bottom lip. 'I suppose he never had the capital, to be fair. Do you need anything, son?'

'Wouldn't mind a glass of water.'

'Coming right up.'

'You've been on the strong pop?' Dad asked as if he hadn't known when he returned with a pint of lemon squash and two strong painkillers. 'And I meant financially. We've a small amount saved that you can borrow if you're desperately skint.'

'So you have to struggle to get by? Thanks, but no thanks.' Ian popped the pills and thirstily drained his glass. 'Another pint of squash would be much appreciated.'

Mother's mood had improved, and the traditional feast she served up at the kitchen table was mouth-wateringly second to none. Excluding the greasy sandwich Dan had knocked up that morning, Ian didn't think he'd eaten for two or three days - he discovered a mighty appetite in spite of his boozy botheration. Like a man rescued from the wilderness, he wolfed down his mountain of tender beef, crunchy, roast potatoes and parsnips, creamy mash, and sweet peas and carrots. Picking up and holding his plate at an angle, he licked it clean and wiped a smear of gravy from his chops. 'Can't thank you enough, Mother.'

'We always try to have one decent tea through the week,' she replied, slicing a golden potato.

'No thanks to any grey geezer in the sky,' added Dad, who after all their married years was still irritated by the way his wife insisted on saying grace before every meal.

'Richard!'

'It's getting harder for a lot of folk,' said Ian, regretfully. He suddenly felt useless and forlornly wished he could do more for his folks. Notwithstanding her usually blinkered piety, Mother had called this one perfect: the drinking malarkey had to stop. He'd had a couple of big shocks - didn't he have to get over them and get it together?

'You could do with eating properly on a regular basis, you know. You've lost too much weight. And you need a haircut.'

'I can agree with that,' said Dad, ardently. 'You are getting some shopping into Dan's dump?'

'I'm getting by.'

His parents exchanged one of those looks.

'Why don't you phone Cathy and arrange for the kids to come round for a meal? I'm sure you'd...'

'I've already done it.' Mother passed the mint sauce to her husband, thinking, not for the first time, that his right eye must be failing. That, or he couldn't see for looking. 'We're waiting for Alicia to fit us in her diary. More importantly right now, I want you to promise that you'll get to a supermarket. Do you need a loan?'

'Dad's already offered, thanks. I can just about tide myself over. I'll find some work soon with a bit of luck.'

'On one of these zero-hour contracts that are currently the rage with employers? Some good that will do you like some good this 'economic recovery' is doing us all. The suit and ties on the news must think we were born yesterday.'

'Well, we've made some progress if he's agreed to stop drinking every day.' Mother put her hands to her cheeks in dismay: 'I've forgotten the Yorkshire puddings!'

'We've got one at the table with us, the way he's been behaving,' Dad joked, stabbing at a slice of beef.

'Richard!' Mother tittered like a girl on a date with the school hunk.

They persuaded Mother to let them take over and do the washing up. Though Dad didn't say much, his no nonsense, no strings attached company made Ian feel better, stronger. A hastily gulped pint-and-a-half of what Dad called council pop also did its bit.

When they went through to the living room, a pre-recorded Antiques Roadshow was running . Some bowtie-wearing dandy used his expertise to gut a punter, pointing out that his green tea set wasn't quite an exclusive relic. 'Just any old mass-produced thing. Sounds about right,' Ian remarked.

'I don't want any criticisms of my shows.' Mother's eye swept over the mantelpiece and her artefacts. 'Do you hear?'

'His tea set's got more chips than Harry Ramsden's.'

'What did I say?'

Dad picked up his newspaper and coughed.

As the theme tune played and the credits rolled, Mother switched to the menu screen. 'More channels mean more repeats and low-budget drivel,' she complained, stealing a glance of a best-selling paperback on top of her magazine rack. A buy one get one free sticker partially concealed the title and the author's name from Ian's vantage point on the sofa.

'It's time for me to be getting on.' Dan hadn't arranged to pick up Ian and it was already gone seven. He reached for the waterproof his brother had lent him and that was draped over the back of the sofa. 'It's been lovely seeing you both. Don't be worrying about anything. And thanks for a truly hearty meal.'

'The reason Dan's place isn't crawling with vermin is that the larder is always empty. Why don't you move back here until you know where you stand? We can help to sort things out, can't we, Dad?'

'Erm, sure, yes. Certainly.'

'I'll think about it.'

'Well, make sure you visit us more often. And Dad can drop you off.'

'It's no problem, my son.'

'I could do with some exercise and fresh air. I'll walk into town to catch a bus, thanks all the same.' Ian shook Dad's hand and pecked Mother's cheek. 'See you soon.'

'Mind how you go.'

'Don't forget that phones have been invented.'

Ian was opening the wrought iron gate onto the gloomy street when a blazing summer's day from way back lit up his mind. He and Dan had fired water-pistols at each other over the bonnet of the family car while Mum packed a picnic into the boot. 'You'd better not scratch the paintwork, boys,' Dad had warned, immediately inspecting the beige Mark I Cavalier. Hadn't he then loaded a long leather case and a wicker basket into the motor? Yes, that was it! They'd cast lines for trout in the Yorkshire Dales! Mother had read some book in the shade of a stout tree downstream from rapids that roared and frothed over smooth, mossy boulders, bank to bank. The memory of the stirring tug on his line as he reeled in his only catch of the day, and Dad's pride as he took over to remove the hook from the beautiful, flapping, two-pound rainbow trout, triggered a heart-wrenching realisation: his parents hadn't given everything over the years so he could be the resident fool in a boozy hole. And what about the house a few estates away where until most recently he'd lived under the illusion of respectability? What were Davie, Alicia and Cathy doing? Was he there? Dan had tried to tell Ian that it was all in the past, but isn't the past that most painful realm where bad things stay exactly the same forever? He caught a vision of maggots writhing in a bait tub. Everything was about perspective. The barbecued trout had been such a treat for his parents.

Ian's breath steamed in the nippy, damp air. He tucked his hands in his waterproof's pockets, stepping in the opposite direction to the club and his former home. Clouds covered the moon and the stars, and the promise of cool, constant rain possessed a melancholy attraction - what would it be like to be cleansed, free of everything? Broken glass crunching underfoot, he cut through the short, dark snicket formed by thick, overgrown hedges and entered the next estate at its highest point. The terraced houses were built on a hillside that Ian could dimly remember as wild grassland bursting with bright poppies. And then the bulldozers must have come. From concrete steps that led down to the sloping pavement, Ian looked to his right, over the rooftops, observing the distant, hazy glimmer and black, angular silhouettes of the town centre's lights and buildings. The clock face on the old church's tower glowed like a surrogate moon. No matter that its hands weren't visible to Ian's naked eye, for he knew the time had come when he had to find something. Only what or where it might be wholly eluded him.

He huffed and puffed, sweating, at the summit of steep steps that rose up at the end of a poorly lit, cracked tarmac path dissecting public gardens and waste ground where a hospital had stood until twelve or so months ago. From the path both vegetation and rubble were shrouded by night, but it hadn't stopped Ian seeing through the years. At about the age of five, he'd slipped off the edge of the public garden's concrete paddling pool, splitting open his head and turning the clear water to a clotty, pink ink. Everybody had panicked and screamed at once. And then he was in his mother's arms, rushing to the A&E, sobbing at the drip-drop trail of blood on the paving slabs behind them. Butterfly stitches had sounded like something that might help him to fly, an idea that calmed him down by rousing a sense of intrigue and wild expectation. Though the paddling pool had been filled in at some unknown point, and the casualty demolished, Ian's left brow still bore the nick of a scar. Until the internet made fighters' records and press cuttings more accessible, he'd boasted to anyone who couldn't know better that his injury was caused by a clash of heads in an amateur boxing bout that had had the audience in an uproarious frenzy. Truth was, he'd hardly worn the Lonsdale gloves he'd received one birthday. Dan could be too much of a big brother.

An aluminium barrier prevented unsuspecting pedestrians from stepping out at the top of the steps onto the sometimes murderously busy road. Ian leant on the cold metal until he caught his breath. Nipping through a gap in steady traffic, he noticed that the low, long pub on the corner had reopened under the name The Highwayman. The road Ian had crossed to stand alongside the pub was an ancient route; he recalled that an area of the town - Nevison - took the name of a stand and deliver merchant. A blue plaque - fixed to the surviving side of a deep cutting in rock that allowed another road to climb its way out of town - marked the spot where the robber's steed had reputedly performed a death-defying leap. From one side of the cutting to the other, horse and rider had miraculously escaped pursuing constables without injury and, just as significantly, deferred the swashbuckling horseman's date with the hangman's noose. For the life of him, Ian couldn't remember the pub's name when, at the age of sixteen, it had been his crowd's meeting place as they set out on illicit nights on the tiles. No one ever turned them away; everybody had done it, generation after generation. In those days, Ian could take out eight quid, get smashed, and stagger home with fish and chips to receive a rollicking from his mother that sailed straight over his head. Wolfie and Mick were still around, but where had those other, once familiar faces gone? For sure, a couple had vanished into the ranks of the army, but Carl, Stevo, Jed and the rest? Maybe they were still around, treading the same paths, only never at the same time. Would catching up with them reveal they'd all gone through similar things as if life came in the one design?

Through The Highwayman's window, a barmaid could be seen bowed over a magazine spread on the bar. Nothing doing, then. The place would close again as abruptly as it had reopened. Just as Ian was about to move on towards the precinct, a guitar chord rang out, followed by a shuffling roll on a snare drum. On a notice board beside the entrance Ian spotted a poster announcing Kill A Killjoy's presence in the house. It wasn't so much the name, but the remote recollection that he'd once played guitar in a band that put a wistful smile on his lips. Didn't he still have a Telecaster in a case in the attic at home? Or rather Cathy's place. Ian was overwhelmed by a bizarre intimation that he'd lived another life, long ago... What on earth had happened to that, well, version of him? It was him, wasn't it?

On starting out, his band had found it practically impossible to draw an audience from beyond friends and family. People went for big names and if yours hadn't already been made, well, that was how you got stuck in obscure, dark function rooms hired by students-cum-promoters who pinned posters of their heroes on the walls. Moved by his memories, Ian reckoned a struggling band would welcome his support, and one more drink for old times' sake and to hail the new times just round the corner, wherever they lead, wouldn't do any harm. He felt for his wallet. He had barely enough for a bus ticket, but the hole in the wall up the street would remedy that. Twenty should be enough to see out the old, bring in the new, without getting into a mess.

The pint-sized barmaid had tapered, hazel eyes and dyed black hair in a ponytail, and though her small ears weren't pointed, there was something uncannily elfish about her. She wore a baggy, ivy green hoodie that added to the effect, though it's impact was blunted by the bold white letters promoting her employer's business. She avoided eye contact by gazing into the glass as she poured Ian's foamy beer. Leaning on the bar, he looked away and sized up Kill A Killjoy - four teenage lads in black T-shirts, skin-tight jeans and sneakers. The guitarist's leather jacket was a couple of sizes too big as if his part was taking some growing into. Some kind of beat up Gibson copy covered in Marvel Comics stickers was slung down over his groin. Going on the ghoulish white powder the bassist and drummer had plastered on their faces, and their top hats festooned with theatrical cobwebs, they would once have been considered Goths, but wasn't it something different nowadays? On first hearing them from outside, Ian had guessed the band were fine-tuning; they were now ready for the real thing. The guitarist showily shredded a few scales; the bassist dum-dummed and feigned boredom; the grinning drummer twirled his sticks and thudded his bass drum. A thickset youth with spiky, bleached hair and a stud piercing in his left nostril leaned his mic stand at forty five degrees and screamed, 'Kill a Killjoy!' The audience - two girls and three boys dressed in an equally funereal fashion - whistled and shouted encouragement from their seats round a table directly across the room. And then a fuzzy, thumping, feedbacking racket swamped everything. Just able to pick out a few obscenities in the sandpapery, strained vocals, Ian took a big swig of his beer, vowing to get out as soon as he'd polished it off.

The male contingent in Kill A Killjoy's fan club pushed and ragged each other by the pool table that had been dragged up against the wall along from the bar to create room for a mosh pit. The scrawny, bespectacled lad with a purple Mohican went flying over an outstretched leg. He got up off his knees, straightening his specs, laughing like he got the joke better than its perpetrator, a chubby blond kid in a skull T-shirt. Fun! Remember that? Kill A Killjoy and their 'crowd' were at the perfect age to make a noise, Ian reasoned. His own band had probably been ear-pollutingly bad right at the start; people had walked out on them leastways. Give the kids a chance? The bleached vocalist stared Ian's way with mean-eyed bewilderment when he raucously applauded at the opening song's conclusion. 'Bravo! Excellent! Might as well get me another pint, love.'

'This next song is dedicated to the idiot at the bar. It's called Screw You! One, two, three, four!' A number as musical as a convoy of HGVs with dodgy exhausts tearing through the Mersey tunnel. But fair play, Ian ruefully grinned, screw useless me for screwing up everything. And to think his band of brothers had sworn they'd never stop off at Ordinaryville, where they mercilessly buried you alive under rules and conventions that weren't supposed to make sense. They'd zipped everywhere in their blue transit banger, cramped between guitar cases, amplifiers, a keyboard, a drum kit - the weapons they'd use to take on what their elders revered as the real world, a place that never failed to teach upstarts a lesson or two, oh no. And so it had. Middle-aged Ian Randall felt cheated. Like his identity had been stolen. Hadn't he aspired to be some kind of spokesman, modelled on Lennon? He'd turned out more like a lemming. A cuckolded one at that.

The sight and sound of the kids in black manically headbanging to a strident, raspy, three note riff was like another wallop of rude awakening. Alicia! Ian suddenly believed he saw the world through his daughter' eyes, as if he hadn't really known all along. She hadn't needed counselling or medication! What a blessing that Cathy had binned the leaflets he'd ordered over the internet. No matter how great Alicia looked - and the kid was a stunner - life wasn't an easy ride. Ups and downs? A scream-a-minute rollercoaster? What brainless garbage! At that age everything is a full-throttled race down an oil-slicked motorway on a brute, awkward contraption you have no idea - absolutely no idea - how to control. And every time you smash it up you're supposed to pick yourself up from the wreckage, jump on another incarnation of the beast, and roar along, proving you're big enough to take it. The best days of your life? Your heart and head rule each other at all the wrong times - you don't know if you're coming, going, or spinning on the spot in your own little world that never orbits planet Normal. Yes, that's what Ian had experienced; he couldn't begin to imagine what girls like Alicia endured, expected, as they were, to be someone else's dream as well as their own. Growing pains? Medieval torturers wouldn't have put their victims through modern adolescence. The more these kids had, the more they had yet to get and to live up to. Was it any wonder they never seemed grateful? Chasing so many things you mostly need just to be 'in' just pulls you in every direction until you're lost or broken up. Isn't that what had happened to his marriage? Hadn't he and Cathy behaved like kids in an overpriced toy store? It hadn't got better as they'd aged - maturity is that deadening thing that cons you into believing that, after all, the world is a fair old place where everybody gets their just deserts. But look at the evidence. He'd worked his fingers to the bone and his family still had to pile up debts to have-something rather than have-not. Since his eldest's birth, he'd routinely kidded himself that things would get better on a snakes and ladders board rife with over-sized vipers and smashed-up rungs. The whole rotten set-up only guaranteed to dirty your hands, head and heart. And hadn't an urgent whisper inside Ian's skull told the truth about the vile swindlers who kept him down so they had everything in their pockets? Isn't that why Cathy had gone wild with credit cards? Life's a fixed game, so fuck it.

Ian guessed that, at different times, all over the country, the continent, the vast globe, men and women had entertained much the same thoughts, usually too late, and, worse still, even when they were timely, with no means to do anything about them. So, life was also an insane trap. Even common as muck humanity knows there should be more to it than operating, tick tock, around the clock, the same routine, the same old dizzying circles, day after day until the very end... Ian emerged from his reverie with burning, bedevilled eyes and a furious urge to pull the plugs on the kids' amplifiers. They had to be warned! You can't dance your way out! That fantasy gamble never pays... He really was a fool. Look at their deathly fashion. Listen to their angsty rants. They already knew. He was the one with everything to learn over again.

Ian had revelled in the gigs, impromptu parties, the exhilarating idea that he might become someone. What a tragedy he'd changed for the worse, ultimately regressing into another dull Joe who voiced his dissent by farting at late night TV... What was that name? John Clare! Who on earth...? Cloth-capped, half-blind Bill, his paternal grandfather, had heard a poetry anthology discussed on Radio Four and presented Ian with a copy for his eighteenth birthday. Mumbling token thanks, Ian hadn't a clue what he was supposed to do with a book like that until, some time later, he was struggling to put lyrics to a beautiful, haunting melody his fingers had stumbled across on his fret board. From page to page, there was so much he couldn't understand, and then, on three hundred and seventy, 'I Am.' Before his eyes the words were alive even though their antique phrasing sounded eccentric, too churchy, to his ear. He shifted them around, altered them, shaping a stunningly profound song. His band were enviously rapt when he first ran through it at a rehearsal in their dimly-lit garage, corrosive petrol smells causing him to half-cough the soaring refrain. The song grabbed attention whenever they performed it: a demo tape sold like proverbial hot cakes as a loyal crowd started hanging out at their gigs. And miffed that his lowly guitarist insisted on singing the crowd pleaser, the vocalist, Beggsy, socked Ian's jaw in a queue for some chips after a particularly rousing encore one Saturday night. Ian responded by squirting tomato ketchup in the green-eyed singer's mush. A split lip was nothing because everybody had mocked Beggsy and loved Ian's song. He never let on that he'd stolen the words, and people only seemed to notice his intensity from the first to the last note.

Bloody poetry. On another night, when a gale drove rain against his window, Ian pored over the book, sometimes marvelling uncomprehendingly, sometimes, truth be told, resentfully, frustrated by his ignorance as much as by the actual words. What had these men meant? How had they lived? He scrutinised the black and white cover again: the Romantics. It had been mind-blowing to think of the vast scope of ideas that humankind had developed throughout history, but now, with the benefit of experience and hindsight, it seemed that men and women like him had one thing drummed into their heads: money makes the difference, so get into line and shut it. The more Ian considered his adult life, the clearer it became that he'd never stood a chance. Even marriage had been beyond his means. And he simply couldn't articulate how that felt.

He had lost the open-face pocket watch that had been Grandpa Bill's prized possession. Hadn't he taken it in for a new spring and then never returned to the jeweller's shop, even after receiving a phone call to remind him to pick it up? Do it tomorrow, another day, next week, never; the shop closed down and something precious had slipped away before Ian realised its value wasn't to be measured in pounds. His mother's pastime had a depth that he'd never previously appreciated, then. Other than foggy memories and his parents' cautionary tales and heart-warming anecdotes, the poetry anthology was Ian's sole link to his grandparents, if the book was, as he guessed, packed up in the attic with his Telecaster. And that hadn't been at Cathy's bidding - she used to love listening to him strumming along. Little Alicia, too; she'd caught the music bug early on. There was no doubt about it; Ian had put his things out of sight and out of mind. Real men with a son on the way don't have time for their own innocent pleasures, he'd thought, scoffing at the suggestion of a guitar stand in the living room as if it was comparable to a toy box. With the spare room emptied, Ian decorated it in boys' blue, not for one moment thinking that the years would fly by quicker than the older generation could ever say, so that between then and now it seemed - contrary to what Ian knew - that Alicia and Davie had reached the verge of adulthood in the time it had taken the paint to dry. And their redundant dad? He had to learn to live with himself for the rest of his journey down the steep, craggy side of life's hill. So, the big question: who is Ian Randall, right here, right now? Just another loser trying to romanticise something about his life having found out his wife preferred screwing her boss? Didn't it say everything that Ian's single, half-notable shot at doing something different had involved stealing words from a man who'd expired in the madhouse?

Ian's infatuation with Cathy the moment he set eyes on her in a taxi rank's queue had resembled a kind of insanity. He'd woke up on Sunday morning unable to believe he'd let her be driven away without speaking one word. And he couldn't get his dumb failure or the girl out of his head. His tutors at college quickly criticised the declining standard of his work and attendance, which sent his boss up the wall. 'So many lads out there would give their eye teeth for the chance to become a plumber! Don't you think you owe me anything?' Mr Tingle had blustered over the telephone when Ian phoned in sick to avoid a disciplinary. 'Have you got anything to say for yourself?'

'Erm...' Just my luck you were chatting up the receptionist as I dialled. 'I...'

'Don't bother turning in tomorrow, son. I don't want to set eyes on you again. Got that?'

The loss of his job and his bottomless despondency deeply worried Ian's mother. She tried to persuade him to see the family doctor, suspecting her son had developed a rare autism or something comparably tragic. 'Leave me alone!' young Ian yelled, slamming the front door on the way out to roam the streets. His band did exactly that. After Ian had missed several rehearsals, Beggsy invited a guy with a perm, a denim suit and a red Strat to replace the plagiariser of 'I Am.' The band became denizens of club land for eighteen months, after which they were never heard of again.

Practical, well-meaning Dad told his boy he'd have to get over it, and that's all there was to it, do you understand? It was a pep talk that only exposed common sense's limitations - the very next afternoon, Ian slunk around the town precinct, entertaining thoughts of a grisly suicide that would make everybody curse his pain. Envisioning a blade slashing his wrists, he looked up, and his expression of morbid ecstasy twisted into one of befuddled horror. How was he to know she painted her face and dressed like a woman on weekends, and slipped into school uniform through the week? She even had a pink satchel covered in Disney stickers and badges. Unable to quite believe his eyes, Ian ran after his imploding dream, his heart pounding and his legs as weak as the disintegrating walls of that castle in the air. 'Hey! Wait! Do you...?' He was speechless again. This time with the pitiful insight he'd blown everything for a girl he could baby-sit...

'What?' Her big, shiny, oval eyes swept over his face. She half-smiled...

Ian's memory of the meeting would flicker into black and white, as if it had been filmed in such a style for a reason he couldn't fathom. Cathy had always remembered his glassy-eyed, scarlet flush when he blurted, 'How old are you?'

'Who's asking?' She bit a nail, varnished in glittery gold - the cause of a reprimand in biology, her last lesson of the school day. 'I mean, why would you want to know?'

'Tell me!'

'I'm sixteen,' she said, frowning, taking to her heels, frightened by his angsty snap. And why did he have a scar over his eye?

'You'll be leaving school soon?' He couldn't stop himself from following her.

'Who are you?' she beseeched, swinging round. His despairing expression touched a sympathetic nerve like a photograph of an injured puppy might. 'Yes,' she answered more softly, civilly. 'To go to college.'

'I saw you one Saturday night and I wanted to ask you out...' What did he say next? He couldn't admit that he'd only found the courage to speak after weeks of torment. 'You got lost in the crowd.'

'Well, I don't know you.' She stared at the floor, embarrassed, fidgeting with one of her pink satchel's buckles. Boys could be, well, so funny.

'What about the cinema?'

'I don't think so.'

'You choose the film. I don't mind. Honestly.'

'Why do you want to take me?'

'I...' Say something! '...Just do. I mean... I think we could...' He grinned hopefully, gormlessly, sticking his hands in his jeans' pockets for fear that he'd stupidly flap them around in his battle to get through to her. 'It's a great idea.'

A second froze. Its passing almost felt like an age.

He almost swooned over as she prettily glanced up at him and reached inside her navy blazer for a biro. She placed cool, soft fingers on his wrist to pull his right hand from his pocket. He trembled at her blond hair's fresh, summery scent as she bent over, under his chin, to print her phone number on the flesh of the back of his hand. The nib stopped digging in. 'Ring me about eight,' she said. 'I've a bus to catch.'

He stood motionless, mesmerised, until she had passed the pharmacy's entrance on the street corner and disappeared round it. Then he gazed at the blanket grey sky, searching for further evidence that his mother's god existed.

Cathy had always found it difficult to say why she'd readily given her number to a gauche stranger she met on the street one overcast day. At school, her blossoming loveliness had stirred love and hate in such unstable, capricious measures she'd become mystified by people and their motives, finding it difficult to trust anyone outside home. It was clear that some vindictive beast always wanted to pick a fight, so maybe her handsome admirer's scar had consciously or subconsciously tempted her to take up his offer. Wouldn't a young man willing to stand his ground give her shelter? Wouldn't someone who'd endured hurt understand her? Whenever she looked back at it like that, Cathy knew she'd been the loneliest teenager, and that would more than explain why, at eight o'clock that night, she'd raced down the stairs to beat her parents to the ringing phone in the hall.

Ian didn't take in a minute of Cathy's chosen romantic comedy. On the back row of the dark theatre, he could only think of holding her soft, warm hand and getting hold of some money. He knew from his parents' fraught squabbling whenever they were short that love alone is not enough. For that matter, he knew he couldn't keep borrowing from Dad. Intimidated by the helplessness that would accompany tomorrow's empty pockets, Ian sneaked yearning glances rather than kisses, while his perfect date popped Maltesers into her mouth and innocently laughed at silly and corny punchlines alike. The smitten young man needn't have worried so much: his luck looked up. Through a friend, Uncle Joe landed his nephew a labouring job on a building site. Nobody gets rich on a dogsbody's lot, but Ian scraped together something to cover board, smokes and courting. Every other weekend, come wind, rain or shine, the two lovebirds caught a train or a coach to a coastal town or a theme park, for experiencing the world together was what it was all about. And what a slap-up Indian meal Ian treated his one and only to when she completed her exams and left school behind.

Cathy had fallen for Ian with the naïve, careless ease that is characteristic of adolescence, and their families met the announcement of their engagement with a mixture of proud delight and world-weary scepticism. Yet, despite the bride-to-be's tender years, her folks saw that Ian had the heart of an honest grafter; given time, he'd get on if any young man could. Could they hope for much better for their princess, heiress to nothing? The area hadn't recovered from the closure of its mines, and the government seemed to be rubbing in the depression. Many in the community felt that it was being punished for a long, bitter strike that had opposed the privileged politicians and what was seen as their industrial vandalism. In light of that, any job might be considered a good one, and Ian had successfully applied to a brewery in Leeds. The knot was tied a month after Cathy finished college.

She had worn her white dress with true traditional innocence, and many a tear was shed in the pews. The bounteous wedding reception, resounding with heartfelt laughter and song, was a perfect aphrodisiac to the most thrilling night of their young lives. In those early days, it seemed their honeymoon, which started in a hotel looking across at Scarborough castle's ruins and out to the glistening, sparkling sea, would go on to the fairytale happy ever after. Alicia's birth brought immense joy and Davie's wailing arrival doubled it. And then? Did Cathy distance herself from her husband when her parents died in sorrowful, quick succession? He didn't think so. His wife was understandably devastated for quite some time, but he'd supported her the best he could. The change had been so gradual, it was imperceptible. And yet, as if in a blink, everything was different. They were no longer the hero and heroine who lived and loved in a romantic bubble floating above the grotty real world. It had burst their illusion, sucked them in, and nothing was good enough anymore.

Kill A Killjoy had rumbled and thrashed on like a hellish industrial machine. Familiar with the real thing's deafening grind, Ian had been able to lose himself and wander nostalgically, searching for something salvageable like a man on a lonely beach after a storm. His hands empty, he had the unnerving suspicion that, should he climb to the peak of the highest dune and peer inland, a desert would stretch as far as his eyes could see, imperfectly paralleling the moody, heaving, grey ocean that sulkily kissed the horizon behind him. Realising he'd visited the forlorn shore during restless, feverish nights, he blinked at his image in the mirror alongside the optics, impressing upon himself that he was now wide awake. As the guitarist launched into a lightning-fingered, wailing solo, Ian carried his beer across the wooden floor. 'Mind if I join you kids?' he asked the band's followers every bit as awkwardly as that day he'd approached Cathy on the precinct.

'Can't stop you,' replied the waif-like girl. Though her death white powder face, blood red lipstick and lacy black dress emanated a spectral aura, her purple Doc Martens and chewing gum belonged to the here and now. And so did her attitude. 'You're going to tell us that you work for a major record label. You'll sign the band if we do you a few special favours.' She put her arm round her female friend's shoulders. She wore equally ghoulish make up and a matching black and purple witch wig; their hairpieces' straight, silky tresses were shiny like black cats' fur. 'Right?'

'I'm a punter,' Ian muttered, taking a stool. 'Besides...' No, he wouldn't say that.

'What?' She strained her ears against the music, punctuated by a furious drum roll, crashing cymbals.

'I used to play guitar in a band when I was your age,' Ian half-shouted.

'That sucks,' smirked the kid who'd grabbed the stool between the girls and Ian. His flattened nose spoke of nasty business, for which he owned the mean, piercing blue eyes. His scruffy black overcoat lent him the charisma of a pauper's undertaker. Ruffling his sooty, spiky hair, he said spitefully, 'Another old fart who thinks he identifies with the kids. Rats.'

'I don't own a buss pass yet,' Ian said, uneasily. He looked in the direction of the pogoing musicians. 'What do you make of the band?'

'They're not as good as LoveDeath.' The undertaker's snarl revealed chipped buck teeth. 'I don't suppose you've had the pleasure.'

'You don't know half of it,' Ian replied, his cryptic smile stained by tobacco.

'We've got one who's escaped from Broadmoor,' the undertaker snickered, turning to the girl whose tiny leather skirt rode up beyond the scarlet garters she wore over laddered black leggings.

'Seen enough?' she asked Ian, narked.

'He obviously isn't getting any,' her friend in the ghostly lacy dress remarked with a scornful cackle.

As much as panning him, Ian figured the girls were performing for the glowering undertaker's benefit. It's a rough old world, Ian reflected, no matter where you are, you've always got to watch your back. The girls moved their stools to the far side of the group, next to the skinny, bespectacled lad with a purple Mohican and a studded brow. He nervously swigged his bottled beer. The blond, chubby lad with the skull T-shirt hungrily eyed red garter girl's long legs, which she peevishly crossed.

Kill A Killjoy pounded another impenetrable rant to its climax, bam, bam, bam, BAM! As the applause petered out, a fist threateningly banged on the table, splashing the undertaker's red alcopop up the insides of its bottle. Ian stared at the lager that had slopped out of his glass onto the table. 'The poster didn't say anything about a private gig, son,' he said, calmly, looking up.

'No?'

'No.'

'Huh.' The kid jumped up. Feeling around in his overcoat's pockets, he strode across the floorboards in the direction of the gents. Kill A Killjoy's vocalist gave Ian the evil eye while the guitarist retuned his instrument.

'Time to go outside, old boy,' the undertaker leered on his return, midway through the next three-minute noise fest. He indicated 'to the exit' with his thumb, and chubby in the skull T-shirt was up and on his way. Bending over, the undertaker pushed his face in Ian's. His breathe faintly whiffed of stale smoke and spearmint. 'You scared?'

'What's this about, son?'

'See what some ape did the last time I went to see Kill A Killjoy? Look at my nose and my teeth. I don't want jumping for nothing again.'

'I'm just having a steady few, my lad.' Ian put his hand on the kid's shoulder. 'You can take it easy.'

'You would say that.' He ducked away from Ian's consolatory hand. 'But we're not talking about a punch up; we're talking about smoking some peace.' He pulled a lengthy, unlit reefer from his overcoat sleeve and swished it under Ian's nose. 'Up for it?'

'You what?' Did scumbags try to push that stuff onto Davie?

'Thought an old guitar-slinger would have appreciated party games.'

'Maybe you thought wrong.'

'How many times do you live?' The kid turned and swaggered towards the exit. For a few seconds Ian glared after him, and then he took a drink of his beer and got up.

Fine drizzle was falling; the patio's crazy-paving had a slippery sheen under the lights on the pub's façade. Curry house spiciness flavoured the air's biting freshness. The dope-smoking duo was sat with hunched shoulders under an umbrella at a bench-table. Three other tables nearer the pub's entrance were empty, their umbrellas closed. 'No expense spared on the smoking shelter,' the chubby kid griped, shivering in his T-shirt as Ian joined them.

'No shit, Sherlock.' His spiky friend produced a silver Zippo from his overcoat and lit up.

The backfiring fizz of a passing motorcycle briefly competed with Kill A Killjoy's muffled, grungy racket. The trio exchanged blank looks. The ice that needed breaking felt thick enough to require a polar explorer's pick. Everything was about finding his feet again, Ian realised.

'Who beat you?' he asked, causing one kid to wince and the other to leer. So he'd started out again by putting both feet in it.

'Nothing you can do about it, so keep it out,' the kid in the overcoat defensively snapped.

'Some underage animal called Liam proved to be...'

'Will you shut it, fatso? Here: put that in your gob.'

The chubby lad took the joint and almost choked on his first drag. 'Jesus, why do you use that cheap tobacco?'

'Because it's cheap, dummy. If you can't take it, give it to the old guitar man before you waste it. And I've told you - I only lost because I was wrecked.'

'He was fast and mean like a tiger.'

'I would have won!'

'Whatever.'

It had just got colder; the ice thicker.

'The name's Ian,' Ian said.

'I'm Keith and this is Christian,' said chubby Keith. He took another drag and coughed like he was turning his lungs inside out. Conceding a defeat of his own, Keith sheepishly passed on the reefer.

'You ok?' Ian asked, taking it.

'Doesn't everybody love smoking the finest combination of sawdust and bear shit collected from the woods?'

'You're just not rock and roll.'

'Get lost, Christian.'

Ian exhaled dirty, coarse smoke. The joint was packed with what they called skunk, going on the evidence his nostrils had detected.

'Ha! See! Even an old guitar man shows you how it's done.'

'Less of the old. Maybe this dog hasn't had his day yet, eh? I've still got it in me to...'

'Hurry up. We don't want to leave Pete alone with the girls for too long or our days are numbered. we're sick of hearing about his intelligence.'

'His sensitivity.'

'Generosity.'

'He's such a good listener.'

'He doesn't want you just for that.'

Smoking with the boys had been an initiation ceremony. Sitting with his spinning head in his hands, Ian remembered precisely why being in with the crowd isn't always so hot. And what had he said about getting on track as opposed to in a mess? Isn't it some fool who can't trust himself? Eventually, after much vertiginous turmoil, he beat the compulsion to vomit and forced himself to look up. Dazzled by the room's strange glow, his eyes met those of the elfish barmaid. Just what he didn't need. It was so obvious. A CCTV recording of the little session outdoors had prompted her to pick up the phone, triggering a series of sorry events that would culminate in a headline in the local rag. Ammunition for Cathy if she wanted to... Jesus, he hadn't tried to contact the kids since he'd left home. How would it all look?

'Christian!' Ian hissed. 'She's been on the blower to the boys in blue.'

'What's that, guitar man?'

'Vice!'

'Get it while you can, hur hur.'

'The law are on...' Ian profusely sweated with the effort of keeping his swirling head up. 'What's so funny?'

'Your colour. Or lack of. You're throwing a whitey.'

'That's why I need your help.' Then something terrible dawned on Ian. 'You didn't have to set me up to get rid of me.'

'Get on top of it,' Christian giggled. 'The gear's made you paranoid.'

'I'm warning you - I'm not a man to mess around.'

'I can see you're dangerous. We're under the threat of drowning in puke.' Christian's blue peepers shone gleefully. 'Didn't you try grass when you were a rock-god in the making?'

Ian couldn't take it. His head fell between his knees. He dragged in deep breaths of the air he fleetingly suspected Kill A Killjoy's noise was poisoning. He was innocent! He'd wanted some fun! And these corrupted kids had gone and planted illegal shit on him! Woozily forcing himself to his feet, Ian patted up and down his body, a DIY search. Christian laughed so hard he rocked back into Keith, who spluttered his lager down his T-shirt when he beheld Ian's panic. 'You'll laugh on the other side of...' Ian dropped to his seat, suddenly recalling an occasion he'd smoked the stuff with his band and become so freaked out he'd refused to take to the stage. Everybody's mean, beady eyes would be on him! And to think he'd tormented Alicia about stage fright. Somehow he had to put things right with his girl. But how could he forgive her for taking bribes to lie to her own flesh and blood? Had she really done it? Cathy hadn't even attempted to clear it up. What did that tell him? That everybody was against him?

Over at the bar, the girl in the ghostly, lacy dress was joking with the elfish barmaid. For no apparent reason, Ian sniggered, laughed, and set off Christian and Keith again. 'Oh my god, stop it,' Ian begged, holding his sides.

'You started...'

'Yes, you...' Keith was bent double on his stool. 'My sides...'

'Just stop it, ha ha!'

The funniest thing was that nothing was funny, and you've got to laugh when life gets like that or else. Kill A Killjoy blasted out white noise profanities and tears of absurdity streamed down the cheeks of the trio. Pete with the Mohican and red garter girl started giggling. Wiping his eyes, Ian realised his nausea had passed. His hysteria vanished, instantly replaced by a cool aloofness in which he knew he could control his mind - its paranoia - by staying perfectly still. When everything washes over you, it doesn't really touch you, and therefore you can't be harmed. Kill A Killjoy's over-amplified trash inexplicably developed an outlandish, intense, hypnotic serenity. Ian listened with a beatific expression that no one who'd known him in recent years would have recognised. He grew convinced he was a clear, sustained note surfing the room on white noise sound waves...

A heavy, bluesy jam abruptly ended when the drummer kicked over his kit and held his sticks aloft. His fellow musicians bowed, cheekily raising middle-digits, their amplifiers droning and screeching with feedback. The bleached-haired vocalist mouthed 'Ha!' down the mic when the bassist's top hat slipped off, revealing a greasy, untamed mop. The applause and Christian's whistles quickly died away. The band was already packing up when the barmaid presented its members with a tray of bottled lagers. Ian's legs felt like marshmallow, causing him to grin like a goon as he approached Kill A Killjoy.

'What do you want, clown?' The lean, aquiline-nosed guitarist hunched his shoulders in his oversized leather jacket, wannabe tough guy style. He took a slug of lager and gargled before swallowing.

'A fabulous effort, lads,' Ian enthused.

Nobody grinned back at him.

'You hear that?' The stocky vocalist unplugged his microphone from the PA, winking at the gruff axeman. 'You sure we don't need a keyboard player?'

'Some real songs?'

'A kazooist?'

'You need to keep trying and keep it your thing.'

'First-class, dude.' The vocalist rested his elbow on Ian's shoulder. 'I take back my song dedication. You're a gem, completely cuckoo, but a gem.'

'Awesome.' Ian startled the kid with a fraternal hug. 'I used to...' He held his tongue and let go. Going on about how he used to do his thing in a band would lead to mockery. It was these kids' time now. 'Just, yeah, like I say, make sure you don't give up.' He knelt down, helping the drummer to fit a tom-tom into its battered, slightly out of shape case. 'There she goes.'

'Much obliged.' The drummer tipped his cobwebby top hat.

'Keep away from my guitar pedals. I don't want them auctioning on E-bay.'

'I hear you, boss. I'll go drink my beer.'

'You do that.'

Their regular audience was ready to leave. 'You rocked it,' 'Mad and bad,' 'Can't wait while next time,' they congratulated Kill A Killjoy while ambling over to the bar to say their goodbyes to the elf girl, who was a friend, apparently.

'See you around, guitar man,' Christian shouted using his hands like a megaphone. Keith raised a comradely fist. Ian raised his pint. The girls and Pete with a purple Mohican smiled faintly before looking away. They filed out into the night.

The fire exit opened onto a small yard where the band's van was parked. The guitarist's bad attitude flashed when Ian picked up the bass drum case: 'Hey dude, do you need your fucking head looking at?'

'Maybe you should cut your throat.'

'You threatening me?'

'With a bass drum? I'm having fun, dingbat.'

'What?'

'Kill a killjoy.'

'Shit,' the drummer said, pushing the guitarist in the back, 'he's stealing our lines.'

Having felt a spasm in his bad back, Ian left the big amps to the musicians. In no time everything was packed in their white rust bucket.

'I can smell something odd.' Ian sniffed under his armpits. 'Where's it coming from?'

'It used to be a fishmonger's delivery van,' the vocalist answered with a laugh. 'You only catch a whiff when you're stoned,' he added, opening the door to jump in the passenger seat beside the bassist-cum-driver.

'Like hell you do.' Removing his top hat, the drummer climbed in the shadowy back between amps. 'Shut the doors, will you? You have to give them a slam.'

'Aren't you forgetting your cuddly colleague?'

'The git on guitar? Devo's staying with Imogen, his girlfriend who works the bar.'

'He's the clever so-and-so who gets the chick if not the big fee, eh?'

'Something like that.'

'Pleasant journey.' Ian banged the doors closed and the engine spluttered to life, belching black smoke through the exhaust. Pulling out onto the open road, the van's horn sounded as Ian stepped from the yard onto the pavement.

Like the shiny, wet precinct that echoed his footsteps, the bus station was empty bar two canoodling teenagers waiting for a no. 145. The digital clock indicated that, at five to eleven, Ian's last service had left five minutes earlier. He'd half-expected it; so, a late train?

A few hundred yards down a sloping street to the ruined castle's boundary walls, and then left, up a short, twisting, lonely lane, the illumined train station - two platforms with Perspex shelters and a basic iron bridge over the tracks - came into view. Ian noted the absence of other late travellers and the timetable, when he floated over to it, confirmed that the last train had been and gone. What now? A taxi he could ill-afford or a return to his parents' place for an interrogation like he wasn't a grown man? Some choice, but a-ha! Couldn't he really do with some exercise? Dan's house was just a few back-to-back streets from the neighbouring town's station - any freight trains would sound a rhythm-on-the-rails warning in plenty of time. Ian rolled a couple of cigarettes and stuck one behind each ear. Sitting on the edge of the cold, damp platform, he lowered himself to the ballast; it stabbed into the soles of his trainers, hurting his feet until he'd hobbled onto a smooth sleeper. Lifting his waterproof's collar, Ian looked ahead into the blackness that led out of town. He took a deep breath. 'You'll catch your death of it if you don't move it,' he said aloud, stepping to the next sleeper in the direction of the dark.
Chapter Seven

The rail tracks cross a low bridge of iron and stone that has, over time, peeled the tops off several large trucks like a starving man at tins of sardines. The truck drivers had ignored or were somehow blind to the highly visible warning signs, something that dumbfounded a great many of those who drove by their ludicrous wreckage and the flashing police lights.

Just along the road from the bridge, set back a stone's throw from the hedgerow, and partially concealing the ashy, scarred landscape left by a defunct coal mine, a red-brick hotel converted from stables tries to put on picture postcard airs, only its whitewashed window-boxes, hanging-baskets and flowerbeds are too often empty or weedy for the image of a rustic idyll to bloom. Some say the prints of Constable's most pastoral days are hung in the foyer to woo guests with the romance of ye olde things before they endure rooms as cold and unsentimental as creaky barns in winter. The bed sheets feel damp to the touch as if they were aired over a misty grave, something not entirely incongruous to the rumours that the struggling hotel would soon breathe its last. Who doubted that the chain hotels surrounding the nearby corporate leisure complex were capable of a lethal squeeze?

It was in the failing hotel's public bar that Michael's well-rehearsed recital of Shakespeare's 'Shall I Compare Thee' made Cathy's heart glow like a summer sunrise. How stunningly wonderful! A vivid new star burning with personality and poetry that would not only illuminate her life, but guide her out of her domestic wilderness. And what about the fabulous gifts of Belgian chocolates and red roses? Michael had seemed so right in every way that she didn't need to forgive herself - no man or woman should be a martyr to marriage when they belonged elsewhere, to another's heart. Those barbaric days were confined to history. Everybody knew it. What a shame the roses had to be binned so their great secret wasn't betrayed.

Their relationship soon became fantastically dreamy and passionate, yet fell into a pattern in which it wasn't unusual for the lovers to be apart for a fortnight. No matter how imaginative their excuses, the responsibilities of their other, open lives could be like tyrannical masters. Still, absence makes the heart grow fonder and there was always something marvellously exciting to look forward to. Until now. Cathy's recent texts had received a few ambiguous replies. The messages she left on Michael's voicemail had met stubborn silence before a whispered, curt call in the midnight hour finally arranged for them to meet again at the hotel where it had started. Back then, with Cathy desperately clinging to some meaning attached to the ring on her finger, Michael had failed, despite deploying his most gentlemanly charms, to persuade her of other retreats' more lavish, private virtues. What had changed his mind about a place he'd thought beneath them?

Work was crawling with gossips. Cathy often sensed sniggering behind her back. Though she tried to convince herself that Michael had been laying low until loose tongues were wrapped round the next juicy scandal, she knew such thinking was flawed. The shop floor's boldest tittle-tattler would never insolently confront a man in such a senior position. Michael didn't have to hide. So, had breaking the news to his wife been so traumatic that he needed space? Perhaps the way Cathy had dressed gave the most telling clue as to her mood and expectations. In her lavender, chunky knit jumper, tight blue jeans and tasselled, black suede boots, she looked casually delectable whereas previously she had gone all out to glamorously, irresistibly thrill.

She'd arrived twenty minutes earlier than the agreed seven o'clock. The bar's only customer, she put a red wine on her credit card and seated herself in the nook under oak beams by the archaic, dead fireplace. It was where Michael had first embraced her and the hairs of her neck stood up as if the ghost of his kiss had brushed her skin. 'Impossible,' she murmured, sipping her wine, shivering. On the opposite wall, between a chalkboard menu and a Turner print of a turbulent sea, a poster promoted, in bold black marker ink, an over-thirties singles' disco. It was scheduled to shake the function room that very night, through the double doors to the left of the bar.

By quarter past seven, the teenage-like angst she had suffered all afternoon flared up into a chaotic resentfulness - her nerve endings fizzed and sparked! Her head swivelled round at the approach of rowdy, masculine voices; she frowned with fiery eyes as men in high spirits burst through the doors. 'Party time!' one of them laughingly exclaimed. Reeking of aftershave, the group eyed Cathy up as they passed her en route to the bar. Mr Muscle-bound arrogantly wolf-whistled. Stay away! she wanted to scream, and the perverse irony was not lost on her despite her see-saw umbrage. She withdrew into the ladies, staring into the mirror as if her reflection had demanded to give her a telepathic talking to. What had it - or rather she - said? A calmer, focused woman emerged and strode over to the fireplace, determinedly avoiding the men's lusty attentions. She scrutinised her mobile phone, quite aware that no messages had arrived. Pints and bottles in their hands, the men exuded beefiness like TV dating show contestants wary of hidden cameras set up to catch them at anything but their best.

The big hand on the wall clock above the cutlery and condiments table nudged round the Roman numerals. At the pool table under the blank Big Screen, the men lost their appetites for blokey repartee over a game of killer. Even the disc jockey hadn't yet shown for the feast of the food of love. Was Cupid preparing floppy sausage-meat with chips on shoulders? And don't laugh! Look at the only bird in the place - the type who thinks she's too classy to play the game so he who dares hasn't a chance. What had she turned up for? To tease her 'inferiors'?

Cathy was punching out a text when she heard stiletto heels click on the stone floor. A dumpy, busty, lightly tanned brunette in a strapless, black mini dress self-consciously swayed her hips, leading her petite blond friend to the bar. The blond's skin was milky white. Pink lipstick glossed her half-dazed smile. Her ring-less fingers with varnished red nails nervously smoothed down her velvety, royal blue number, which flowed to her ankles. Her plaited pigtails conveyed a girlish innocence that was complemented by the effect of her friend's feathery, boyish crop. Cathy watched several of the men ogling the pair as they ordered flamboyant, sickly-looking cocktails. And then she sensed eyes on her.

It was a tall gent in a three-piece glen-plaid suit, with a silver-streaked goatee, and a slightly bulging forehead as if something nasty was slowly bursting from his skull. His thin lips smiled condescendingly at the surprise on Cathy's pretty face, and he confidently advanced, placing his stylish, black leather briefcase on her table as if it was packed with testimonies to his importance. 'Good evening', he said, turning towards the bar without waiting for Cathy's response. His grey, slicked ponytail made her think of cold-blooded playboys and a serpent's fangs. His black, buckled, designer winkle-pickers were like a subtle threat that no expense would be spared to kick you when you were down. And then it struck Cathy that disaster had visited Michael and he had a reason that explained everything but her own lack of faith in him. Weren't her darkest thoughts a kind of betrayal?

She was wringing her hands in suspense when the mystery man returned with a golden spirit on the rocks and a blood red wine in a long-stemmed glass. He carefully placed the drinks on mats and then faffed about with his stripy tie, drawing attention to the old boys' school crest. Cathy knocked back the wine she'd bought.

'Mrs Cathy Randall?'

'Yes,' she nervously confirmed, intimidated by the evening's unexpected twist.

He shook her limp hand with a grip like a boa constrictor.

'I'm Rodger G. Cutterford of Cutterford & Nash, which in layperson's terms makes me a legal eagle. Not that I'm here to swoop on little lambs that have no rights.' His voice was educated, melodious, sharp; like a harp strung with razor wire. He grinned broadly, darkly, revelling in knowing everything that she didn't. 'In an unofficial capacity, I'm helping out a dear old friend. I understand you're acquainted.'

'Is Michael well?'

Cutterford unzipped his briefcase, opening it at an angle that prevented Cathy seeing inside. He held aloft a plain, brown A4 envelope. 'My esteemed friend cannot be with us and has therefore requested that I deliver this correspondence.'

Cathy took the envelope as if she feared it might explode.

He sipped his whiskey, his narrowed grey eyes savouring her anxiety as she drew in a deep breath before taking the plunge and tearing it open. There was just one sheet of plain A4 paper on which was typed:

Cathy,

It's over. I think you must know.

Yours sincerely.

No signature. She turned it over as if something else must be written on the other side. Its blankness was an anticlimax that rammed the brute message home.

'Please,' Cutterford said, holding out his right hand to reclaim the letter and envelope. His gold bracelet was exactly the same as the one she'd bought Michael for his birthday. 'I'm sure the document has no use as a keepsake.'

Cathy complied, blinking, unable to think straight.

'An unfortunate affair,' he observed, returning the papers to his briefcase and emphatically closing it. 'I must ask: do you understand that the decision is final?'

She nodded, her stinging eyes settling on her glass. She wanted to throw wine in his face. Slap him hard. Scream her soul out. The dirty bastards.

'Ah, a sensible woman. There really is no need to make these things difficult and, indeed, courtesy of my friend, here's something that will make everything that much easier.' From his inside pocket he produced a wad of twenty pound notes bound by a yellow elastic band. 'One thousand pounds, tax-free, of course. I'm sure you'll agree that it's a more than generous settlement, and one that isn't obligatory by any means. I'm also certain that you appreciate the need for discretion from this moment on.'

Cathy didn't move to take the money, but instead sipped bitter wine. When she returned her glass to the table, Cutterford lifted it and used it as a paperweight. 'We don't want your gift to blow away should there be a draught as I leave.' He emptied his glass of liquor, looked intently for a second or two at the ice, and then threw the half-melted cubes onto the grate of the disused fireplace. 'My dear friend insists that henceforth any communication exclusively pertains to your respective professional - if that's the correct word in your case - duties. You both have positions to consider. I hope you take that in the spirit of sound advice as much as a warning. Thank you for your time, Mrs Randall. Goodnight.' He picked up his briefcase and strode to the exit without looking back.

Cathy glared at the wad, wishing a cigarette lighter was at hand. The cheap, lying, cowardly rat! So Michael thought she'd done it for the things his precious money could buy? His invites to the swanky joints where they'd flaunted what they'd got? It had been far more than that to her. She'd risked everything - her family - to be with him! And... And... Who was fooling who? Who was the greatest pretender? Cathy couldn't sob if she tried. Her injured pride would stand for nothing but dry eyes. And what was the truth of it? If not for Alicia's inability to hold her own water, then things would have remained exactly as they were? Naughty treats on the side, whenever Cathy felt partial and time permitted. The worst of it over the past week had been the instability, the doubts, the fear of the crashing dream... Or was she now just winding up for some other performance?

Not for the first time in her life, Cathy looked into her heart and struggled to explain its emptiness when it came to men, and there had only ever been two of them other than her father. In the artlessness of youth loving Ian had come easy until her raw intelligence, sick of unstimulating, endless routines, fell to the mercy of her imagination, bloated on soap operas, romantic novels, films, advertisements, glossy catalogues. From such materials she constructed a persona so illusory and glamorous that it gave her the derring-do to play any game and stripped her marriage - with its gritty little realities and dramas - of dignity and hope. Wouldn't Fairy washing up liquid have been the closest she came to romantic adventure if everything was left to dutiful, dull as dishwater Ian? And getting a job when the kids were big enough had made things worse: the monotony of work ensured she'd less time for home's chores. What a life! A woman's drudgery is never done! Who can blame a girl for dreaming of other 'hers' in other worlds? Michael, of course, was anything but her imagined Prince Charming and a virtuoso player of a game that always had just the one winner. It wouldn't be the last time a wealthy rake promised a pretty woman better things - spiritual as much as material - in order to taste the animal, fleshy pleasures. Urgh! The finer feelings said to make the world go round are lies and self-deceit stuck together with body fluids! Whenever Cathy tore away her disguise she could only swear by the giddy high of shopping, yet that was premeditated to leave you gagging like an addict. And as debts piled up a woman felt as hollow as a cheat's promises; she'd behave ever more furtively, sneaking something else on her plastic for a buzz that never actually made her feel whole. Was that it? Did Cathy have something missing that made her unlovable and unloving? Who did she love?

A muffled disco beat throbbed through the walls. Other than the young bar man who was wiping the beer pumps, Cathy was alone. She lifted her glass and took her lucre, zipping it up in the compartment of her handbag where she stored receipts. Well, now she knew; dreams can come true, most likely the wrong ones. Those recurrent, wild scenes in the dead of night were proof enough that she'd never fully trusted Michael. Did two souls occupy her body? A hopelessly youthful escapist enthralled by every cliché known to popular culture, and a hard-faced, no-nonsense realist alert to every disappointment known to life. It seemed that baby hard-face had had enough; oh, she'd cry later, no doubt, when the lights went out, but it was no crisis, just another crock of shit. Nothing could compare to her desolation when illness stole her mother and a lonely heart broke her father shortly afterwards. That had been love. She could almost hear her father telling her: 'Consider yourself lucky, lass. He hasn't left you for dead; you've another chance to live.' And so she had. How should she use that opportunity? It wasn't necessarily the colour of her hair or her clothes that had to change this time.

She pictured her two-faced ex-lover returning, all smiles, to his wife at their dinner table having just taken an important call. 'Yes, my sugar plum, everything is working out splendidly...' Cutterford never lets a man down. Did Michael's wife know anything? She was always buried in some project of the university where she worked, at least according to her husband. How reliable was anything he said? And yet really, whatever Cathy accused Michael of, she was as guilty. What about her treatment of Ian? He was now drinking himself into an early grave if the tales she'd heard were true. Had their marriage meant so much to him? And what about Alicia and Davie? Who had been hurt the most? Who did she love?

Cathy returned the three empty glasses to the bar and thanked the young man. 'My pleasure,' he said. 'Are you Alicia Randall's mum?'

'You've mistaken me for someone else.'

'Oh, sorry. You're the double of a girl my sister knocks about with at college.'

'Don't worry about it. We all make mistakes.' Cathy smiled into his face and the look in his eyes told her he'd also identified her from her credit card. 'And thank you again. Goodbye.'

Despite feeling grotesquely uncomfortable because of her lie, Cathy couldn't overcome her cynical curiosity. A singles' night for a single woman? Such a joker Michael had turned out to be. Wouldn't it be hilarious if he choked on his laughter? She pushed the double-doors open onto the cheesy sound of sisters in the mood for dancing, romancing, giving it all. Mists of dry ice and a spotlight swept across the dance floor. A strobe briefly flashed like an apparition of her intense, stormy dreams. From the booth in the far corner, the shadowy DJ peered over at her, the silhouetted woman in the doorway. She averted her gaze. The other two women had taken a chill out sofa near the back of the sizeable function room, and the men loosely encircled it and them. The petite blond appeared to be laconically answering questions put to her by a moustachioed man in a sickly, bright red shirt. He sat on the sofa's arm, looking down. She crossed her legs. The slightly dumpy brunette got to her feet and inelegantly danced round the closest table, slipping a suitor who tried to grab her arm. To their right, the square-jawed hulk with a fake-tan grinned, flashing a gold tooth as he moved in Cathy's direction. By the time he reached the double-doors to the bar she had slipped through the exit. He smiled conceitedly towards the entrance to the ladies, and ordered a lager and a red wine. Ten minutes dwindled away before he cottoned on that he'd played himself for a fool. By then Cathy had stepped from the cold shadows on the edge of the car park and climbed into her taxi, thankful for the heating and the skinny, zitty driver in a baseball cap who never had much to say.

The ride through familiar streets and Cathy's bitter-sweet loneliness evoked memories that she had learned the hard way to censor; yes, relive the best times, don't mournfully revisit their end - death does not define those you've loved. Contrary to the present, the past overflowed with deep, everlasting affections and blissful days whose sheer ordinariness or lack of contrived magic provided a humbling glimpse of her youthful, ingenuous integrity and hopes... Turning a picture book's pages with her cute, sweet darlings by her side... Blushing through her veil on her proud father's arm as that most famous tune resonated meaningfully on stained glass and stone walls... Pinning up pretty boy posters in her room and recording the top ten hits on an audio cassette... A secret diary she still had stashed behind novels on a bookcase... The greatest ever birthday present: a doll's house of fascinatingly intricate detail... The taxi driver braked. Without a word, Cathy put the usual fare into his hand. She unclipped her seatbelt, opened the door and got out into the freshest night. She was alive and kicking, and, after a fashion, free.

Dance music's four-four beat softly bumped and ground from Alicia's bedroom. Funny really, thought her mother, the way she had no time for boys. Davie didn't appear to be around. On the kitchen worktop were four letters that Cathy hadn't had time to open earlier. Bills or junk mail? The homophonic connotations of the latter prospect caused her to ruefully smile - it was too easy to get into a lather over a rubbishy male's soft-soap. Perhaps her daughter had the right idea, for all of her naivety.

Let the vultures wait. After their contents were cursorily checked, Cathy tore her letters into quarters and binned them. She flicked the switch on the electric kettle. The white coffee jar on the shelf over the breadbin had a message embossed in red: 'Wake Up And Smell It'. It had been bought to mock Ian, but look who had taken the longest to get the joke, after all. She reached for the jar.

'You're back early.' Alicia leaned on the door jamb, her arms crossed over the big love heart on her indigo sweater. She'd been working; a yellow highlighter was in her right hand, the felt tip pointing down.

Vaguely pleased that her girl hadn't set the central heating cash-devouringly high, Cathy pensively felt her smooth teeth with her tongue. She spooned instant coffee and two sugars into her mug.

'Is everything all right, Mum?'

'Nothing for you or Davie to...' Sigh. 'Everything's fine.'

'And that's supposed to mean?'

Cathy opened the fridge to get the milk.

'Well?'

She poured semi-skinned over the coffee and sugar. With a stir, it turned brown.

'What is it?'

'We've decided to call it a day.'

'Oh, that's...' Time to hug her mother or time to get out of her way? Who'd be blamed?

Cathy returned the milk to the fridge. Who did she love? 'Where's Davie?' she asked after a deeply introspective moment.

'I don't know. He didn't come home after school... I didn't... It's...'

'There's no need to upset yourself, babe, because there's nothing more to be said on the matter. Except that I'm disgusted with myself for letting you get caught up in it. I'm so sorry.'

'I still want to say that I didn't...'

'Leave it, Alicia. Please.'

It was just as well. Alicia didn't know what she wanted to say. How could she?

Cathy pulled her mobile from her handbag, pressed a few keys and put it to her ear. 'Are you on your way home?' she said, picking up a dishcloth and wiping up the drop of hot water she'd spilled on the worktop when making her coffee. 'Good lad. I was thinking we could have a takeaway as a treat so don't dawdle... Yes and yes... See you soon.' She replaced her phone in her handbag. 'Right, my princess, I suppose you'll want to argue with Davie about whether it's to be Chinese or Indian?'

My princess? Hadn't she just split up with Michael? Alicia beamed blankly at her mother - explain what's going on, please!

Davie kicked off his trainers and dropped his hold all at the foot of the stairs. In the living room, he was surprised to find Alicia discussing college without launching herself into the deep end like a screaming toddler without armbands. 'Here you are, at last,' Cathy smiled, crisply clapping in greeting. 'We couldn't have held out much longer. We're famished.'

'Chinese?' Davie asked with a sniff.

'Even though Indians are generally healthier, I'll have a vegetable chow mein.'

'What's happened?'

'Don't be so suspicious, young man,' Cathy said gently but firmly. She'd have to be careful; he picked up on everything, that one. She reached for the house phone on the coffee table.

Why wasn't she complaining that no one ever puts the phone where it belongs, on charge?

'Your favourite?'

'Does he try anything else?'

Davie indulged his sister with his middle finger and spun round to leave the room.

'Enough of that, please, both of you. And wait a minute, Davie. We'd planned a family get together.'

'That's right,' Alicia smiled sweetly, as if she only awaited the delivery of her halo and wings before her transformation was complete.

'Ok, you're a one hundred per cent improved double, but what have you done with my sister?'

'Will you give it a rest? We want some quality time together. Now sit down.'

Something other than maternal tetchiness subdued Davie's instinct to rebel. He dropped onto the unoccupied leather sofa facing the drawn, silver silk curtains.

'And don't put your feet up on the arms.'

Now that was more like it; normality.

The call to the Chinese over and done, Cathy said, 'Alicia's been telling me about her progress at college. How are you getting on at school?'

'I do my homework. Don't start picking...'

'What about your grades?'

'Not bad.' They were better than that; Davie was achieving A*'s in most subjects. 'It's all a bit boring.'

'Just keep on as you are.' Cathy knew about her son's excellent work after frequently bumping into his form teacher, Miss Waites, and her boyfriend in the supermarket. 'We do, however, need to have a word about these films.'

'Since when did spending quality time together mean ganging up on me?'

'Nobody is ganging up on anybody. What you're doing is illegal. And don't look at Alicia like that - she hasn't said anything. Alex has flooded the factory with movies and music. He'll be sacked and reported to the police if management find out, and they will do. You do know that Alex isn't someone to get involved with?'

'He's family. My cousin. Your nephew.'

'Only half-nephew. His dad, George, was from my dad's first marriage. But that's irrelevant. Alex is a petty crook and a thug. I want you to promise that you'll stop pirating films and concentrate on your education.'

'I'll have to finish the order I'm on with,' Davie replied, frowning at the mention of father and son. Misreading her brother's discomfort, Alicia looked away to smirk covertly. 'It'll cause trouble if I don't,' Davie added with an air of inevitability.

'And that'll be the end of it?'

'Stick a needle in my eye,' Davie pledged, slyly crossing his fingers. Huh! His mother would get carried away with something else soon enough.

'Very good. Now that's been cleared up, shall we watch a film? One of my legitimate copies.'

'They're soppy comedies or worse, full on mush,' Davie complained. 'I'd prefer one of Dad's spaghetti westerns. And it isn't a real family get together without him.'

'We'll get used to the change. It might not be what we all wanted, but me and your father were experiencing problems for a long time before things came to a head. Where are you going, babe?'

'Upstairs for a minute,' Alicia replied, paling.

'Where is Dad?' Davie asked when she'd gone.

'I suppose he's busy looking for work. No one can call him an idler, I'll grant him that. Other than that I can't say. I haven't heard from him since he came and collected his clothes.'

'Where did he take them?'

'I don't know.'

'You do!'

'Uncle Dan's,' Cathy finally conceded. 'Dad will be in touch when he's ready, Davie. I didn't tell you before because I didn't think he was in the right frame of mind.' And, by God, for the sake of the kids, she hoped he'd get into one.

'Can you expect...?'

'Shush!'

Alicia had returned with Monopoly. 'I thought we could play seeing that we don't like cowboy films that, in spite of what someone says, are just as make believe as the films we love. Everybody used to enjoy Monopoly. Do you remember?'

'I do, my love. It's a wonderful suggestion, don't you think so, Davie?'

'Not if she's banker.'

'I do not cheat!'

'You pay yourself treble for passing go.'

'That's what real bankers do, and more. Sally and Paige had to analyse some newspaper cuttings in their critical thinking class. They were thingy-sheets as well.'

'Broadsheets. And anyway, real bankers might cheat, but what's the point of us playing if you're going to do the same?'

'Davie can have a turn at being the banker, Alicia. Good girl. And I forgot to tell you both - your grandparents have invited you for tea. I bought you a little time by saying Alicia is very busy with her music. I shouldn't need to tell you that you're to be on your best behaviour when you do go round.'

Davie and Alicia gurned at each other in disbelief - as if they were mad enough to argue round there! Still, thought Davie, things were looking up. He knew where Dad was staying and, although he hadn't dared ring his grandparents for fear of Grandma June's reaction to everything, now she was in on it, she'd soon extract Alicia's secrets, one way or another. Alicia wouldn't dare refuse to go to tea in case she provoked Grandma into making her own visit round here.

A mix up in the kitchens delayed their Chinese. By the time the deliveryman knocked on the door Davie was on the way to mopping up on the Monopoly board. His mother and Alicia didn't always capitalise when the dice were favourable. So you don't want to privatise Liverpool Street Station? You'll turn down Park Lane because you'll never drop on Mayfair? They'd concentrate better if the game was based on Gucci shares, Davie grinned, admiring his piles of pretend cash and deeds rather than reading the searching looks Alicia gave Mum in exchange for her strangely tranquil smiles. Alicia had snapped up Old Kent Road and when Davie's racing car braked on Whitechapel he skinned her for the right to own the whole seedy area. Seven hundred pounds, a get out of jail card, and the water company - stop making films? They must be joking! The Monopoly board didn't lie! As soon as he was of a legal age, Davie Randall would thrash the likes of Bill Gates at their own get-rich-quick game! Bring on the big bad world!

Cathy switched on the TV while they ate. They became engrossed in a programme about a heavily scarred female skeleton unearthed by an archaeological dig in Southwark. Forensic scientists revealed she was a teenage girl who'd shockingly contracted syphilis. A too young lady of the night, concluded the historians. 'That's putting me off my food.' Alicia put down her knife and fork. The grisly, reconstructed face of pockmarked poverty during Queen Victoria's reign had set her imagination racing down dark, Ripper haunted streets. 'What a great thing attitudes changed and we don't have to do that to survive.'

'Things haven't changed that much for a lot of women,' claimed Davie. 'Or men for that matter.'

'Don't be stupid.'

'I'm not being stupid, idiot!'

'Well, how can you claim that?'

'Ask any lad. You only have to set up a Twitter account and loads of hookers send you messages. And they're threatening to stop Johnny's dad's money because he told them he wouldn't work for next to nothing as a shelf-stacker.'

'That's disgusting! They must be drug addicts.'

'Johnny's dad isn't. He says a fully qualified workman needs a proper job that pays enough to keep his family.'

'I hope you don't reply to any of them,' said Cathy, scandalized by Davie's close encounters with 'the game'.

'I delete them,' he said, his mouth stuffed with saucy battered chicken balls. 'More or less what Victorian society did, so it seems.'

'Refusing to communicate with them isn't exactly...' Didn't the thousand pounds in her bag say everything about Michael's attitude to her? Was his 'payment' a deliberate swipe at her reputation? 'But you are right to point out,' she started again, her voice emotionally cracking, 'that many women aren't treated well even in modern times.' She stopped; cleared her throat. 'That's why it's doubly important, Alicia, that you do well at college and don't lose your head in the clouds. Pop stardom doesn't come to many.'

'My feet are firmly on the ground,' Alicia asserted in a huff that her mother's distant, watery gaze instantly snuffed out. 'Are you...?'

'I'm fine, babe.' Cathy forced a smile.

Alicia snatched the remote control and changed channels. Heavy metal on MTV - the end of the discussion. Something really is going on, thought Davie, sitting up, as Alicia volunteered to do the dishes. She collected their plates with a stony concentration that provided her brother with no clues. 'I'm too tired to continue with Monopoly,' he said, faking a yawn, watching his sister leave the room. He wasn't going to learn anything of importance tonight, and everything would come to he who times his move and picks an ally like Grandma. In the meantime, he'd work to do. 'You'll put the game away?' he said, through another yawn.

'I will, darling.' Cathy turned the TV off. 'Go to bed, love. Sleep tight.'

'Goodnight.'

'Sure you're all right, Mum?' Alicia asked, entering the room a few minutes later.

'Yes, babe, and thanks for washing up. It was very considerate of you.'

'As long as I've got my mum, I'm happy.'

They hugged on the sofa.

'I'm going to shower and then read in bed.'

'That sounds like a fabulous idea. Your education really is important. Goodnight, darling.'

'Are you sure there's nothing I can do?'

'Positive.'

'Goodnight, then.'

Alone again, Cathy poured a glass of red wine and packed away the game. Had she sincerely doubted that she was capable of loving? The things that sometimes enter your head! She'd always cherish them both. And she and Ian had enjoyed a better run together than she often cared to admit. How terribly sad that some flames burn out.

The thought that Michael might be amused by her anger stopped her sending a vitriolic text. The slimy liar had played deceitful games right up to the end - a Google search could not find a Mr Rodger G. Cutterford of any Cutterford & Nash. What sort of creep is willing to act out a scene like that? Did he owe Michael money? Was he one of the old boys' network, scratching a back or getting his kicks through an unscrupulous wager? Far more to the point: what sort of man hasn't the courage to do what he has to do? Or did pathetic, privileged excuses like Michael consider that the ends always justify the means? Perhaps honesty, pluck and right and wrong are for the lowly fools of this world. Cathy realised that an opportunity to exact revenge would probably never present itself. Men like Michael get away with murder.
Chapter Eight

'Will passengers on the one thirty-five Trans Pennine service to Liverpool please note that your train has been delayed by ten minutes? We apologise for any inconvenience. Thank you.'

On Leeds City Station's busy concourse, just along from the three short queues to the holes in the wall, under the enormous TV screen that silently rolls off news headlines and glossier advertisements as if disasters and ideal consumers' fantasies are part of the same grand design, three teenage girls - a red head, a brunette and a blond - occupied one of Upper Crust's tables. Half-drained bottles of coke and screwed up baguette wrappers rested on their moulded plastic tabletop. A small number of high street carriers were tucked between their feet. Ugg boots, tight blue jeans, a black, quilted coat, a neon pink scarf - though each girl honoured the uniform decided by a vote in the college common room the previous day, the blond did not giggle along with her loquacious friends. She peered between their shoulders, through the ever-changing crowd that studied the digital arrival and departure boards, and, apparently, focused on nothing, for it was unlikely the mundane happenings of Burger King's counter could entrance her.

Presently, the brunette crossed her blue eyes, and turned to the lost blond. In the morbid drawl of a too theatrical clairvoyant, sillily waggling her fingers in the air, the brunette asked, 'Is anybody there?'

'Don't be such an airhead, Paige,' the blond blasted, nervously flinching.

'Oh my god! Excuse me! I hope you've been dreaming of performing at Party in the Park - or somewhere unmentionably special - because you've been nothing but a boring pooper to us this morning.'

'What's bugging you, Alicia?' The red head asked, kicking Paige's shin under the table.

'What goes around, comes around, Sally Jordan.' Paige laughed loudly and nipped her friend's hand, causing her to squeal.

'Something's wrong, Alicia,' Sally tried again, nursing her hand and trying not to titter at Paige's cross-eyed funny face. 'You're usually in your element on our Saturday shopping expeditions...' And this time round Alicia had half-heartedly browsed through the hangers and rails of her most beloved boutiques, purchasing just one reduced plain black vest. Sally and Paige had initially put it down to a strop because for once, just for once, they didn't have to play maids to Alicia's fashion princess: Paige had her birthday money and Sally's mum had shared some of the luck she'd enjoyed at bingo. Yet maybe their idea needed revision:

'I think,' Paige sniggered, under another announcement about the delayed train to Liverpool, 'Alicia's finally realised there's another sex. Who's the lucky guy?'

'If you can't say something worth hearing, don't say anything. Oops! I must be telling you to shut up for good.'

'Whoo!'

'And I don't know why you're grinning because I wasn't joking.'

Alicia's week had been so dreadful it was too much for her to grin and bear its passing. On Monday she and Davie had gone to tea at their grandparents' house. The family seniors had characteristically fussed over their grandkids until Grandma, spooning out chocolate chip ice cream for dessert, naturally couldn't stop herself: 'How did you find out, Alicia, my angel?'

'Find what out, Grandma?'

'The... What made your dad leave.'

'I...' Could have curled up in a shallow grave... 'H-h-heard someone gossiping outside the local shop.'

'That wasn't a nice thing to happen to you, my poor dear, and I'm very sorry to hear about it.' More than sorry: Grandma shook her head in disgust, believing Alicia's painful memory of her discovery explained her stammer and burning red face. She was still so young; a tender girl.

The pious family elder laid bowls of ice cream and fruit salad in front of her grandchildren like she was putting down wreaths at a family memorial service. At least her husband's eyes saw it like that:

'An extremely unpleasant business,' he agreed sternly, taking his bowl of dessert. 'So let's leave it to settle, June, eh?'

'There's more to it than that!' Davie fiercely gushed after staring into his bowl for a minute. He couldn't believe his sister was effortlessly wriggling free of the third degree.

'And how's that?' Grandma froze with a spoonful of ice cream held an inch from her pursed lips.

'Let's not get carried away.' Granddad had noted Alicia's teary eyes.

'She knows more than she's letting on. She might even...'

'Davie, that can't be true and we don't want any unnecessary upset. Hasn't everybody already had a bellyful of it? Alicia isn't responsible for her mother's actions or those of her father for that...'

'No! I'm not!'

'...matter. So maybe we should enjoy our ice cream before it melts.'

'Do as Granddad says.' Alicia waved her spoon in Davie's face: 'Eat with yours and don't stir with it!'

'I heard you arguing with Mum,' Davie riposted, knocking her hand and spoon away. 'You were talking like you knew him.'

'Knew who?' snapped Grandma. 'This is getting beyond me.'

'Mum's boyfriend or whatever he is. Alicia knew his name is Michael.'

Alicia spoke slowly, through grinding teeth: 'I heard Mum say his name.'

'How come she shouted something about going back on a deal?'

'That's going too far, Davie,' said Granddad, 'Alicia can't...'

'Shut your fucking big gob!' Her grandparents looked on speechlessly as tearful Alicia leapt to her feet. 'I hate you!' she seethed at Davie, frantically unravelling the strap of her pink leather handbag that had got wrapped around the back of her dining chair. She fled the second she'd yanked it free. She'd almost reached the street corner by the time Granddad got to the front gate in his slippers. Perceiving that the headstrong girl had enough about her to keep under lamplight, he saw no point in calling out after her. After a shrug, he went back indoors.

Hysterically panting and gasping, Alicia burst in, flew through the kitchen, into the hall and up the stairs. What now? Cathy rapidly blinked like a malfunctioning machine switching on and off. After standing the iron on its heel, she massaged her temples. 'You can do it,' she said softly. The knots in her stomach twisted like a strained gallows' rope creaking in the wind. She pulled her Tefal's plug from the socket. As she stepped through to the hall, the almost crease-free, silky blue blouse she'd been working on slipped from the ironing board to the kitchen tiles.

Cathy tapped three times on her daughter's closed bedroom door. 'Babe, what's happened?'

No reply.

'Why are you back so soon?'

Silence.

Cathy gently pushed down on the door handle and entered. Alicia's face was buried in her pillow. The pillowcase's pattern of red love hearts complemented the quilt cover; a match that seemed to Cathy to be the sole point of emotional equilibrium in the whole house. Crouching by the side of the bed, she tenderly kneaded her daughter's blond locks: 'My baby, it can't be so bad.'

'It is! Don't patronise me!' The pillow muffled Alicia's despair without suffocating her anger: remaining face down, she furiously kicked against the love hearts on her quilt as if her limbs were giant, snapping scissors demonstrating how she was cut up inside. Behind a pile of cuddly toys, her headboard banged on the wall.

'No, my baby, nothing's ever that bad. It really isn't.' But despite Cathy's lullaby hush and her gentle hands that teased stress from Alicia's scalp, some time passed before the teenager had calmed enough to sob out the story of her evening. Cathy hugged her tight. 'Sometimes it feels like we've met the end of the world, although we never do. The world never stops going round. It will work out, my love.'

'Davie said...'

'Forget it. Let it go. He doesn't understand...' Or perhaps he understood too well, and, what's more, the hurt was just beginning. It was already too late for regrets: why is someone always to blame in love? Fighting back bitter tears, Cathy clung to Alicia as the landline telephones rang. One across the landing by her own bed, the other downstairs in the living room - their shrill, enervating echoing scorched her mind... No! Leave us be!

Davie slunk through the front door. It seemed to him that the house possessed an ominous silence like a horror movie's atmosphere the split second before the villain jumps out and attacks. Only this was for real, and wouldn't everybody consider him to be the bad guy? He glanced at the shoe rack - the girly pink trainers Alicia had been wearing weren't to be seen. It again crossed his mind that his sister hadn't returned home. Or had she and Mum rushed out? Why hadn't the door been locked? Why were the lights still on? He truly sweated after looking down the hall and into the kitchen: Mum's ironing had been abandoned on the floor, which equalled T-R-O-U-B-L-E! Too keen to drop his bombshell, Davie hadn't considered how he'd be caught in the explosion. Though Granddad hadn't exactly said so, it was clear that he thought Davie had lied. Grandma would probably quiz Dad and find out the truth, but what good would come of it? Mum would be furious that he'd tried to expose his sister's role in the family's downfall. Wasn't it sickeningly obvious that it was broken forever?

Until he figured what he should do, the best thing Davie could do was hide. On that thought, he switched off his mobile, pulled off his trainers, crammed them into the shoe rack, and shot up the stairs. Only at the top, when the murmur of a conversation behind a closed door reached his ears, did he learn his sister and mother were safe at home. He rubbed his damp eyes. They must have heard him, yet they carried on regardless, and that was another lift to his spirits. He'd half-expected Alicia to have tipped a vial of paracetamol down her throat, or to have run away someplace the streets crawl with freaks who pimp girls for a lot less than gold. Images of missing posters and wailing ambulances had tormented Davie throughout Granddad's mild but solemn lecture. 'Don't make hard times harder,' the old fellow had said, winding up his speech as he pulled over to the kerb, 'though it's understandable some things are said in the heat of the moment.'

'It was the...'

'Do you receive me, Davie?'

'Loud and clear, Granddad.'

'Good lad. Now go and make it up with Alicia. We'll phone her when she's had time to pull herself together. And if you've any problems, give us a ring. Got that?'

'I suppose.' But hadn't Davie alarmingly seen the frailties and flaws of the people he'd always thought dependably strong? He unclipped the seat belt sensing that life's shifting sands can fast become quicksand, and that the truth is mostly a great secret.

'See you soon, son.'

'Bye.'

Davie quietly closed his bedroom door and stood perfectly still in the darkness, as if it could shelter him from his woes. Surely, given what had happened, the house's strained peace wouldn't last? Tiptoeing over to his desk, he switched on his lamp, which offered a more subdued glow than the ceiling light. He stripped off his school uniform and jumped into bed as a soft tread could be heard moving over the landing. Here we go, he thought, as his mother - he guessed - stopped outside his door. But no, after a pregnant pause she could be heard retreating down the stairs. Pop music softly drifted from Alicia's room. Was that it? At least for now? The clocks had recently been put back an hour and though it was dark outside, it was still far too early for a teenager to sleep. Davie slipped from under his duvet and pulled on his tracksuit, which had been neatly folded over the chair at his desk. 'Where did I put that list?' he murmured, opening up his laptop. And how did he shake off the unsettling intuition that something horrendous was on its way? His search engine threw up reams of hocus-pocus.

On Tuesdays Alicia didn't have to be in college while noon and Davie left for school before she stirred. To his surprise, Mum had cooked up a top-ranking breakfast - a fried bacon and mushroom butty - and she didn't say a dicky about the bust up at Grandma's. 'I've phoned in sick because I've some things that are pressing. I might not be in when you get back so make sure you take your key.' And that was as close as it got to the much anticipated rollicking. Things are getting weirder in this house, Davie thought, licking tomato ketchup from his fingers. He glanced at the clock. Phooey, who needs physics first thing? Oh well, best get his skates on. But not before replying to Eddie's text about meeting up at the shops rather than the climbing frame due to an overused snooze button.

'Rise and shine, my darling.' Cathy gently shook Alicia's shoulder. 'Time to get up and get dressed. I've some good news - you can take the day off. We'll have a ride out to clear our heads.'

'Don't feel like it,' Alicia sleepily mumbled, rolling over and pulling her quilt over her face.

'A bit of fresh air will do us both the world of good.' Cathy insistently but lightly shook the human-shaped lump under the bedcovers.

'Let me sleep.'

'We'll get wrapped up.' Cathy stripped the quilt from her daughter's face. 'What about the seaside?'

'At this time of year?' Alicia's puffy eyes blinked open; had someone lost the plot? 'And you're always telling me I shouldn't miss any lessons.'

'This once won't do any harm. But if you prefer pushing your pen...'

'Are you serious?'

'Never been more so.' Cathy planted a kiss on Alicia's forehead. 'Now let's see some life in you.'

'It's, like, really off-putting when you smile at me like that.'

And soon enough, despite a heart full of remorse and sympathy, Cathy was tight-lipped and mentally cursing a bad idea day - Alicia morosely dipped toast soldiers in her boiled egg as if she'd been condemned to the trenches: she made a dirge and a death-dance of it because Abba 'isn't motorway music': she gave her mother eyes like murder weapons on seeing the soupy, eerie mist creeping over the North Yorkshire Moors' bleak scrubland. 'Perfect weather for dumping a body,' Cathy said, attempting to tease Alicia into a better mood. 'Got a candidate?'

'Pfft!' Her girl looked away, through the passenger window.

They were on the long sloping road into Whitby when visibility became a streaming blur no matter the work of the windscreen wipers. Cathy slowed, but drove on. The pelting raindrops hardened into hailstones that sounded on the car roof like a thousand gulls desperately pecking to get in. 'I can't believe this,' Alicia bristled, crossing her arms.

'It's ok, babe, it's turning to rain again.'

'That's ok?' Alicia wound down the passenger window by an inch and peered into the driving, swirling pall as a marrow-chilling draught swept through the car. The abbey ruins were an amorphous, grainy blot on the high, desolate cliff. The wet and hazy old town seemed to shiver and shirk from the ancient, grey, violent sea. 'Ok isn't what I'd call it!'

'I suppose the beach is out,' Cathy sarcastically replied and gritted her teeth. 'And we won't be walking up the famous one hundred and ninety-nine steps to the abbey. But let's try to make the best of it?'

'How's that possible, Mum? The sky is falling in.'

'Don't exaggerate, babe. It'll blow over soon enough.'

'There isn't one tiny speck of blue to be seen. Why didn't you check the weather forecast?'

Because it's rained on me so much of late, I've almost forgot that sunshine exists, Cathy felt like yelling. Instead, she dragged on the steering to turn into a car park. 'On the bright side, there are plenty of parking spaces.'

'You don't say. And we're really going out in this?'

'We haven't come all this way for a bit of rain to stop us.'

'I don't get you, Mum. One day you're a classy piece, the next you're some sort of mad hippy teacher on a doomed school outing.'

'Have I really been classy when you think about it, darling?'

'You know what I mean.'

'Do I?'

Alicia reached over to the back seat for her black cagoule. She pulled it over her purple turtleneck jumper after unclipping her seat belt. 'Let's hope the polar bears don't bite.'

'It's more likely to be a vampire in Whitby, according to legend. Now let's see...' Cathy cautiously reversed and braked. 'Chin up, babe,' she said, reaching for her olive cagoule and pulling it over her stripy red and blue sweater. 'I'm glad you listened to me and put on jeans and sturdy boots. Is it going to be too windy for our umbrellas, I wonder?'

'Now it's the deranged girl guide routine.'

'Don't be silly. Look, I've parked by a ticket machine. I'll quickly get one and then we can shoot across the car park, round the lobster pots and back over the bridge. We'll be in the more sheltered part of town before we know it.'

'The rain isn't dryer on the other side of the river.'

'Alicia, can we make an effort? Give our day a chance?'

'Whatever.'

Hurrying across the swing bridge over the River Esk, a whirling, wet gust violently ripped their umbrellas inside out. Cathy cursed at several bent spokes. Alicia wickedly smirked, letting her brolly be taken from her hand. It inelegantly parachuted towards the river's muddy waters before another huge gust swept it under the bridge. 'You'll have to buy me a new one. It'll have sunk to the bottom already.'

'Just move it, babe,' Cathy testily ordered, struggling in the drenching gale to take down her brolly. Damn and damn again if it wasn't buggered! She stuffed it in a bin outside a closed fish and chip shop on the other side of the bridge. From there, splish-splash, they scurried towards the narrow, cobbled streets. Few others were out and about and several of the quaint, touristy shops had their shutters down - the impression of desertion did nothing to improve Alicia's mood. Trying to keep dry, Cathy led her daughter ducking and diving from one shop to the next. The teenager took less and less interest in whether they sold books, china, pagan trinkets or second-hand clothes in aid of charity. 'Come on, Mum, I'm bored,' she whined whenever Cathy browsed meaningfully. The rain had made their mascara run, and they both looked like they'd wept. Alicia's thunderous, black face and quivering lip as they took some kind of refuge under a stinky fishmongers' dripping awning finally caused Cathy to concede: 'Ok, the weather wins. The day's a wash out. We'll grab some dinner and head home.'

'What great ideas you sometimes have,' Alicia said, rolling her eyes.

'Oh, get over it,' Cathy retaliated, exasperated.

'It's like that, is it? So much for clearing our heads.' Alicia crossed her arms and turned her back, not least because the dead stares of slimy eels and mottled plaice through the shop window were disturbingly gross. And as for those pinkish-orangey creepy-crawlies with black beads for eyes, yuck! The stuff of next week's bad dreams.

They shook their wet cagoules from the doorway of a homely-looking café next to a fish and chip shop so proud of patriotic hope and glory almost everything from the recently mopped floor tiles upwards was red, white and blue. Because the hot fryers blurred the windows with condensation, Cathy had had to press her nose up to the glazing to read the menu. More accessible was a framed print of a young Queen Elizabeth II next to a poster of all the fish in the sea. The chubby, rosy-cheeked assistant wore a plastic, union flag bowler. She started wiping down the counter for want of anybody to serve. Stepping back from the window, Cathy looked down at her leather boots: stuck to her heel was a length of Saint George's flag bunting that had come unfastened from the red, white and blue awning over her head. The bunting trailed in loops across the wet pavement and into a gurgling drain. Oh yes, Cathy thought, a warm seat beats traipsing wet streets with soggy trays. And Alicia didn't argue. 'After you,' she said with a sniff, holding the café door open.

'Let's shake down our cagoules first.'

Cathy placed their order with the polite, diminutive man at the counter; he might have passed as a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like out of comedy garb. Walking over to the table Alicia had taken by the window, Cathy admired the collection of Toby Jugs on the high shelves on each of the four walls. A faint, warm, doughy smell permeated the café. 'This is cosy,' she said approvingly, pulling her chair from under the table with a nerve-grating scrape. Alicia grimaced. Cathy took pleasure from the spotless quality of the red and white gingham tablecloth. She'd collected cutlery from the counter - both her knife and fork reflected her face without imperfections. 'The type of place where they live by the old saying, cleanliness is next to...'

Alicia yawned and stared out of the window, which was flecked by the ceaseless downpour, obscuring the view.

'Miserable, isn't it? And it's in until the weekend and probably beyond.' The waitress set down their plates of haddock, chips, mushy peas and bread and butter. Perhaps just turned twenty, she had the frame of an overgrown stick insect, and her big, round, blue eyes suggested she'd been born to come out at night. What appeared to be her own floury, slender handprints were smudged on the hips of her black uniform. 'I'll bring your coffee in a mo'. Is that ok?'

'Perfect.'

'Thanks a bunch for the cheery weather forecast,' Alicia sneered when the waitress stepped out of earshot.

'You wished I'd tuned into one.'

'Talk about service with a smile,' Alicia bitched a little louder, ignoring her mother.

'Oh, you've been a candidate to model tooth whitener?'

'Cheese,' Alicia said, with arsey poseur cheesiness.

'Anyway, this is some compensation for the weather: a fish and chips treat.'

'There's a chippy down the road at home. We didn't have to travel for miles.'

'This meal will be as fresh as if it just came off the boat. And think on what the brave fishermen might have gone through to bring their catch in. Come on, tuck in. Even salt and vinegar have a special aroma and taste at the seaside.' She finished shaking the vinegar bottle, put it down, and picked up the salt pot.

Alicia's eyes widened when she stabbed her battered fish with her fork - she couldn't get those slimy, dead peepers at the fishmonger's out of her head.

'Things aren't so terrible, love,' Cathy said, concernedly gazing into her daughter's horror-stricken phiz.

'Don't keep saying that,' Alicia waspishly responded, her mind's eye finally managing to blink away all sea monsters great and small. 'Things are actually worse than terrible - everybody is blaming me for something that wasn't my fault.'

'Babe, no one is accusing you.'

'I'm not paranoid. Davie blames me. Grandma and Granddad know about it.'

'I'll have a word with Davie. And your grandparents didn't believe him. They phoned last night when you were asleep.'

'They will believe him when Dad tells them the same thing!' Alicia banged the ball of her fist that clenched her knife on the table. The impact turned the vinegar into a microcosmic, stormy brown sea in a bottle. 'And then what will you say?'

'Let's not discuss this... Ah, our coffees. Thank you, love.'

'Any deliberate breakages will have to be paid for,' the waitress said, coolly eyeing Alicia. 'Enjoy your meal.'

'Who's breaking anything?' Alicia's belligerent eye burned into the waitress's back like a warning Cathy would be stupid not to heed. Even though the rain had stopped most people from venturing out, a bald, fat man in an out-of-shape, shabby trench coat had a mug of tea at the centre table - a row in front of him, the café's Chaplin-like proprietor and the waitress would be no less humiliating than if Alicia raged in front of a cold-hearted mob. Luckily, the shiny-domed customer appeared lost in his tabloid, biting his rubbery bottom lip. His fingers were nicotine yellow. Cathy discreetly swabbed her welling tears with her napkin. Alicia clattered down her knife and fork and pushed away her plate:

'What's up with it, babe?' Cathy's voice was breaking up.

'Don't feel like it.' Alicia knew it was wrong to punish her mother, and yet somehow it was wickedly empowering. A flashback spotlighted the vile grin of Billy, her friend Sally's six-year-old cousin, as he stamped on bees and ladybirds when they'd taken him for a walk down the lanes this summer gone.

'The batter is gorgeously golden and crispy, and the fish is deliciously flaky...'

'I said, I don't feel like it.'

Cathy found she could steady her tremulous speech if she didn't look up from her plate: 'Well, hold on until I've finished.'

'It's not just about how you feel.'

'I think I've also had my fill.' Cathy dropped her cutlery. 'Let's get out of here, shall we?' She took a twenty pounds note from her purse and placed it beside her abandoned meal. Grabbing her cagoule, she nearly knocked her chair over in her haste to reach the door.

'God, what's up?' Alicia's boorish pretence that she didn't know she'd gone too far caused the fat man to peer over from his newspaper. She blushed and rushed to the door.

Returning over the swing bridge, Cathy stopped and squinted into the slanting, cold rain that bitterly stung her cheeks. She gazed past the masts of the moored fishing boats, beyond the heaving, frothy mouth of the Esk, to the misty horizon where the sky began and the sea ended at some indeterminate point. She took deep breaths of the bracing air. Her parents had always extolled the sea air's restorative powers, but Cathy felt she most needed potent magic, for nothing else - not even time - could mend the relationships damaged by her affair. Turning round, she saw Alicia nip through the light traffic edging this way across the rainy, windswept bridge. Her girl hurried ahead on the other side of the road as if she had to escape some diabolical thing. Cathy's heart sank deeper like a wreck on an unstable sea bed: what a mess she'd made of parenting and for what? Romance? Her stupid love had sent her family down faster than the setting of her favourite sentimental film, Titanic. She half-wished that a colossal tornado would pick her up and carry her out to sea so that she could be dumped in the wild depths. If she sank to the bottom without a trace, now wouldn't that remedy everything, once and for all?

She caught up with Alicia in the car park. 'Open sesame,' she said, activating the central locking.

'Common sense finally shines through.' Alicia flung her dripping wet cagoule over the back seat. 'But not before my jeans are wet through and I have to risk catching my death of it. I'd better not miss much college. You're always going on about education's importance and this mad excursion has put me even further behind.'

'I never thought I'd see you climb on top of a pile of textbooks to claim the moral high ground.' Cathy shook her drenched cagoule out of the window, folded it up, and put it on the rubber floor mat under her legs. Her jeans were also saturated. She turned the ignition and started the motor. 'I don't suppose I've ever done anything right, have I, Alicia?'

'You said that, not me.'

'And I think we'd both better button it before something is said that will be long regretted.'

'It's fine with me if a certain big piggy goes shush all the way home.'

'Oh, don't we all know you haven't been tickled.'

Alicia had been booked to perform at a ruby wedding anniversary taking place in the George V on Wednesday. The pub was a few miles out of town in a former mining village that hadn't developed - after all these years - a new identity, unless out cold ghetto counts. Over time, a mean spirit had usurped that of community; men expected to be punched for nothing, women expected nothing in their purses long before pay day, and too many kids learnt, unless they want nothing forever, the difference between right and wrong is getting caught.

Another brooding silence hung over Cathy and Alicia as they drove down another drizzly street of tired, crooked, red-brick terraces. The George V loomed on a corner next to a grubby, second-hand car showroom with several eggs smashed on and dripping down its windows. 'This can't be right.' Alicia's lip curled with petulant disdain. 'There must be two pubs with the same name.'

'Not according to the satnav.'

'Boden will be booking me into hell's sewers next.'

Cathy quickly gave the pub a once-over. Its murky whitewash façade, scruffy, drawn curtains that didn't let anybody look in or out, and graffiti riddled fire exit surrounded by broken glass were first impressions to make her put her foot down like she wanted nothing to do with the crime. Instead, she indicated and turned into the car park, conscious of hiding as she reversed between a transit van and a tall brick wall. On the side of the pub, a street art gangster smoking a spliff was in the glare of a security light: Anon. had cheekily used it like a gallery's spotlight.

'You sure you want to go ahead with this, babe?'

'Don't constantly babe me, please. My agent says the profession needs learning from the bottom up.'

'He would do seeing that he's never had anything to do with the top. We're having a rough enough time at home without coming to the frontline of an old war zone like this.'

'Bombs away, glamour puss,' Alicia grimly replied, unbuckling her seat belt. She slammed the door so hard Cathy shuddered. Either something gives or someone cracks, she thought, locking the vehicle and tracing her daughter's steps to the entrance.

A considerable, boisterous crowd had taken the buffet to pieces; its remains were spread across four long tables with white tablecloths covered in crumbs and spilled pickles and sauces. Toddlers laughed and hollered, playing tag between and around their boozing relations' tables. A bearded, paunchy, middle-aged man in a white shirt and red tie read out the celebrating couple's cards from the tiny stage. He raised laughs by undermining each tribute with an in-law joke. Alicia was stood at the back of the room sick to death of party balloons and tinsel when Cathy entered. With a discreet jerk of her head, she indicated that Alicia should meet her at the bar.

Cathy was about to speak to the publican when the resident barfly quipped, 'If you're the strip-o-gram, I'm the birthday boy.' He grinned toothlessly and Cathy's lips thinned. Likening the grey, stubbly, balding creature on a bar stool to a perverted gnome on a toadstool, she decided he was best ignored. He'd doubtlessly talk another kind of stool like it was his religion.

The publican's glowing, sweaty, drooping face bore similarities to a miniature sun on meltdown. A Brylcreemed tuft on his bonce and an Elvis tattoo on his neck were dying embers of his Teddy Boy youth. He stuffed a slice of uncooked black pudding from the silver tray on the bar before asking: 'You the turn, love?'

'My daughter's the performer...'

'I bet she is,' sniggered the barfly.

'Hey now, let the lady speak,' the publican said, severely.

'Whatever you say, boss.' The barfly stared into his near empty glass, suppressing his laughter.

'Excuse Pete, love, some say he's got a disease. I'm Big Dave by the way. Right, ahem, let's crack on.' Big Dave stuffed another two slices of black pudding from the tray on the bar. 'A couple of things,' he said, munching away. 'Firstly, I do the fiddling with the PA because one such useless act's messing cost me more than I'd taken all night. To rub it in, they could've meddled until the cows came home and they'd still have been dung, if you get my drift.'

Alicia crossed her arms and scowled as if he'd slyly slighted her act.

'Secondly, she \- yes, I know she's not the cat's mother, love - has to change into any stage gear in the toilets. We've never had a dressing room and my wife doesn't allow strange girls in the living quarters, you know what they're like once they've a ring on their finger...'

'This is so West End,' Alicia mockingly cut in.

'Like it or lump it. Once upon a time I was a sought after Elvis impersonator and I sang in some tough holes. I wouldn't expect ladies to even listen to the stories. I just ask you to get changed in the loo.'

'And you've no idea how charming that is. It's devastating we never saw you sing 'In the Ghetto'.'

Alicia had to pinch her nose on checking out her makeshift dressing room - the old troll who'd just flushed had truly confirmed that the deal stank. Didn't that fat rock 'n' roll reject know who he was dealing with? Mr Boden had better have a good excuse for hooking her up with Big Dave and his grotty pub! Arrggh!

Even if the van she'd parked behind provided an impenetrable curtain, Cathy agreed that it was a good idea that she keep look out while Alicia changed on the back seat of the car. 'It's not a crime to pull out of a show when you don't feel up to it,' she counselled through the slight gap in the window.

'God, there's no room in here,' Alicia replied irately, pulling the hem of her dress out of her knickers. 'And don't you know the show always goes on?'

'I know I've sometimes taken too much notice of what people thoughtlessly say, babe. Don't make the same mistake...'

'If you want to go home, I'll get a taxi back.'

'Ok, ok. I wouldn't miss it for anything.'

'Is that meant to be funny?'

'Don't be silly.'

'Well, give me some me time to compose myself. It's something even the biggest stars sometimes have to do. Not that you'd understand.'

As the lights went down, Cathy took a seat in the empty corner along the concert room's back wall. Anybody would have been forgiven for thinking she'd come from another planet and not just three miles down the road, the way they stared. The mucky-minded, hostile hunger she detected in several men's eyes was as grotesque as the deprivation that spawned it; from the youngest to the oldest these people somehow seemed horribly, inescapably worn and gnarled. The boom of Alicia's backing tape spared Cathy from further visual prodding by turning all heads to the stage. Alicia appeared from the wings in a glittery, skimpy dress; she'd put on red lipstick and let down her hair. Yet she loitered in front of the microphone stand as if she didn't belong: her arms and hands were limp by her sides, her glittery heels refused to acknowledge the beat. And when she opened up, she sounded painfully lacklustre, frail, like a sparrow with a broken wing. Nobody wanted to dance with anybody. Cathy forced herself to bear the spectacle, each empty note and lyric like a stab to her heart.

The older punters looked unsure as to whether the occasion required them to politely applaud at the opening number's death. One or two tried it, but when their clapping didn't catch on, they reached for their alcohol. Their younger counterparts grinned mercilessly when Pete the incorrigible barfly heckled the pointless warbler. 'Is this slow death by disco or revenge of the X-Factor misfits?'

'You tell her, Pete!'

'I'm telling her! I'm telling her!' he raved with a strangely orgasmic spite. 'She might as well flash her tits and have done with it.'

'Watch your language in front of children,' a too young grandma chided, punctuating each word by stabbing her index finger in his direction.

'They'll learn it in the playground. And it's not all they'll learn, ha ha! No one stays innocent for long round here.' His twisted laughter was an echo of the evil lessons in life that had defeated him. Sweat collected on his brow. 'They'll all go the same way,' he declared, before swilling his pint.

Cathy was tempted to go stick her fist on his ugly lip. It'd give the lot of them something to laugh about, and wouldn't he deserve it! But wait! His insults had boiled Alicia's blood and stoked up some fighting spirit - if she spat the opening line of some twee, jaunty pop song, she was also fit to burst with feisty, sparkling oomph! Conversations stopped in mid-flow; heads turned. Cathy read the lips of a gaunt, youngish blond whose burly, flat-nosed man nodded in agreement: 'This is actually quite good'. With her heart in it, Alicia reignited the party atmosphere: those who knew the words sang along and swayed in their seats, while the celebrating pensioners took to the floor and creakily danced ballroom-style. Triumphantly, defiantly, Alicia held the song's final note to resounding applause. 'That showed you, Pisshead Pete,' someone shouted.

'Hear! Hear!' Cathy yelled, swelling with pride.

Pete spun his arse on his stool and stuck his elbows on the bar, showing his back to his critics. Cathy twigged that he made enemies all too easily.

Alicia's pride had got her on song, and once she was there, the sheer exhilaration of performing helped her to forget herself and her worries. She soulfully belted out slushy ballad after disco stomper after sing-along classic until, with a dazed, surprised expression, she was taking a bow that signalled the end of her first set. Mr Son-in-law in the white shirt and red tie jumped up onto the stage and seized the microphone. 'A hand for the lovely lass with the big voice, please. Yes, John, we're aware you'd like to give her more than a hand.' Bawdy laughter rumbled along with the ovation for the blushing songstress slipping into the wings.

'Frank and Doris want each and every one of you kids to have fun on their big day. Who's up for party games?'

A few kids cheered over the fading applause.

'I said, are you up for it?'

'YESSSSS!'

Alicia gave Pete the barfly a glare like she'd love to swat him as she strutted along the bar to meet her mother, whose face shone delightedly. 'That was mind-blowing, babe, and I've filmed several songs. One of your videos is bound to go viral one day soon. What would our superstar-in-waiting like to drink?'

'Can I have the car keys?'

'Do you have them with ice?'

'Please don't split my sides. I want to sit outside until I have to sing again.'

'They really need a dressing room. It's scandalous. I'll bet you're not the first performer who hasn't been in a mood for socialising.' Cathy rummaged in her purse. 'What have I done with them? Oh, there you go.'

Unsmiling Alicia let the keys drop into her palm and swivelled on her heels towards the exit.

Cathy knocked back her orange juice. Such things go through teenagers' minds; wasn't it wise to check up on her darling?

Her hands behind her head, her knees up, Alicia was laid across the back seat. 'I'd rather be alone, thanks,' she said, without opening her eyes.

'Like I'm staying in there on my own.' Cathy shut the door and settled in the driver's seat. 'The way things have been we obviously don't have to speak.'

'Your presence puts me off.'

'Puts you off what?'

'Meditating.'

'You're indulging an out of body experience, are you?'

'Shut up, Mum.'

'Oh, I should shut up?'

'Yes.'

'Isn't it a pity you hadn't zipped it up when your dad lost his job?'

The back door clicked open. The slam rocked the car.

'Fuck!' Cathy thumped the steering wheel. Why did she have to say that?

Alicia didn't know how she survived another ten songs, while kids ran amok and their family and their friends nattered as if she was just another dumb blond dreamer destined for nowhere. Gradually, after congratulating the old couple one more time, the guests dispersed. Alicia took a final bow to a gentle ripple of applause. She stepped off the stage, which was only raised by a foot, with a gloom that deepened the moment she set eyes on Boden. In his trademark trilby and black suit, he leant on the bar promoting some scheme that wasn't winning her mother over. Her brows were sceptically raised and her arms were defensively crossed. 'Ah Alicia,' Boden said with a simpering smile that turned two pretty faces to cold stone. He scratched his red, bulbous hooter; his watery, bloodshot, cobalt eyes narrowed. 'How's my budding starlet?'

'I've already told you she isn't so good. And you haven't yet explained what sort of gig this is supposed to be.'

'All acts cut their teeth somewhere, my good lady. And do I regretfully detect snobbery in your thinking, Mrs Randall? This is a deprived area in socio-economic terms, but that doesn't stop the people loving music. The locals have as much right to see my acts as anyone else. And, I must say, Alicia stuck to her task with professional gusto... No, no, no, don't interrupt, Mrs R. I've an important piece of advice for Alicia after analysing her excellent show: in between sets it's often productive to mingle. The most difficult audiences can be won over with a few tricks of the trade. And isn't it about happy punters?'

'Alicia's a classy singer not a downtown hooker,' Cathy fumed. She felt most aggrieved because condescending Boden was partly right - she had been looking down her nose when she had no earthly right to. 'Alicia will be out of here as soon as she receives her fee. Get your hand in your wallet - we're also socio-economically deprived, as you so eloquently put it. I'll wait in the car, babe.'

'People often have trouble,' Boden commented, watching Cathy blaze a trail to the exit, 'adapting to the pressure of the biz. Not to worry.'

'Easy for you to say,' Alicia sneered, unable to say who she found the most ridiculous and repulsive: bull-talking Boden or her sharp-tongued, interfering bug of a mum? Gawd, she could be irritating and cruel.

'I have, erm, dealt with our finances, my beautiful little honey tonsils. Here's your thirty - a more than reasonable sum for a low-key event.'

Alicia screwed her fee into a ball in the palm of her hand.

'My pop princess, there are bigger nights on our horizons. Big Dave, for instance, did his Elvis thing under my wing and ended up with a full season at Butlin's. And you know your mum can always have a night off because I'd be honoured to chaperone my special star. We could go places.' He winked his watery, bloodshot eye and slung back a shot of whiskey. 'Think about it.'

'I'll do that,' Alicia said, grimacing.

'Have a pleasant ride.'

Alicia hated it when he talked to her cleavage, but only when she was halfway home did she fully understand the randy old pervert's intent. How dare he?

'There's no point in getting angry with us. You might as well let us in on it. Who's your dream date? Love's the explanation for this.'

'Paige, I'm not sure that it is.'

'Don't stick up for her, Sally. You agreed with me the other day that it's time Alicia got a boyfriend.'

'Boys disgust me,' Alicia said sharply.

'Try a man.'

'They're worse.'

'As if you'd know. And it's not what your mum thinks.'

'What did you say?'

'Everybody knows, Alicia. There's no need to act shocked.'

'You flaming bitch!' Alicia grabbed her carrier bag and sprung up as if she'd adjusted her bum on her seat and been pricked by a prankster's drawing-pin. Her chair fell backwards and crashed to the floor. The public address system and general bustle absorbed the clatter. 'And I thought you were my friend, Sally.'

'It's not what you think...'

But Alicia was zigzagging through the crowd to the platforms' gates.

Sally got up and put the fallen chair on its legs. 'What was that about, Paige?'

'Her ignorance gets on my nerves. It's true about her slapper mum, anyway.'

'She's got problems at home.'

'Don't be so touchy, Sally. She isn't the only person whose parents split up.'

'And that's how I know exactly what she's going through. Alicia's my friend. Is she your friend?'

'It's always about her.'

'That's a yes?'

'What do you think?'

'Show her some understanding, then. We'd best leave her to cool down and come round. We'll finish our cokes before going to the train.'

Up the escalator, across the busy bridge, and down the furthest escalator, the two girls spotted Alicia along the platform some time before she clocked their approach. She was hunched up into herself beside a metal bench adjacent to the stationary Metro's first pair of closed doors. On the bench, a young couple's goo-goo talk and daft faces couldn't quieten their tot. Baby in blue had blubbered and wailed when a drunken Scotsman aired a rebel folk song. He was waiting to get on at the far end of the train's two carriages. Many of the shoppers along the draughty platform pulled faces at his slurred, rough melody. Everybody seemed glad when he forgot the words to the second verse. 'Bloody Sassenachs,' he laughed, swaying and swigging from his vodka bottle.

'Remember, Paige, we want peace,' Sally whispered, before beaming hopefully in Alicia's direction.

'I heard you the first time,' Paige replied loud and clear, without any such exhibition of pearly friendliness.

Several times over Alicia had run through her mind the things she wished she'd said. On seeing Paige and Sally, she let her tongue loose like a whip. 'You've some need to talk about my mum, Paige. She went with one other person. The boys at college call you One Hundred and Eighty - you've had more pricks than a dartboard.'

'You cheeky cow! I've news for you! All the boys hate you! Alicia Cockteaser, that's your name.'

'Will the pair of you please stop it?' begged Sally, feeling like she'd shrunk to an inch high.

'So you think she can say that to me, Sally?'

'You admitted you shouldn't have said anything about her mum.'

'I was going to apologise. She's no chance now.'

'Do you think I care?' Alicia blazed.

'Shush! Everybody's watching us!'

Paige and Alicia peered around and found everybody on the platform gawping their way.

'I can't take you anywhere, can I?' Sally drolly added, hoping to defuse the controversy. But the giggles of two youngish women proved to be infectious. Even a sombre-looking man with a wispy white beard and in a tatty grey suit smiled, his eyes momentarily losing their haunted, impoverished harshness to twinkle distantly. The tot on the bench sucked his dummy and looked on through red, wet, wide-eyes.

'What are you lot staring at?' Paige's snarly crack at letting them know she didn't see the situation's funny side only more brightly illuminated it. 'You're worse than babies! You can bog off!' Swinging her shopping, Paige set off marching to the other end of the train, glowering intensely to shift people out of her way.

Sally's dilemma as to whether she should stay with Alicia or go with Paige was put on hold: the train driver and ticket inspector had ambled up, causing the other passengers to step forward in anticipation of opening doors. It was easier for Sally to hop on board rather than push against the flow. Holding onto the rail by the luggage racks, the young red head watched the travellers pile on. One or two smiled at her sympathetically, as if to say, 'With friends like that you've always got enemies'. A sickly reek of sweaty cheese and onion pasties and stale beer hung in the air. Alicia passed her as if they were strangers, and Sally's shoulders heaved despondently. She'd be accused of taking sides whoever she sat alongside. But did she have an option? Until her own parents had separated, she and Alicia had grown up together on the same street - it wouldn't be right to desert her oldest friend during a bad patch. Alicia would never forgive such a betrayal. And anyway, Sally wasn't a fool - Paige had wanted trouble the way she'd nudged and winked, encouraging her to laugh at Alicia when she'd forlornly daydreamed in the shopping centres. Paige shouldn't have bitched about Mrs Randall, either. What's more, it got Sally's goat the way Paige flirted with her Matthew. It was true; Paige was an untrustworthy warm arse.

The train got moving. Sally smiled optimistically when she took the seat beside her friend. Alicia gazed out of the window as if the rusty, graffiti covered, redundant hopper cars of the inner city's industrial wastelands were more to her taste. How tiresome was this going to get? Sally typed a text and sent it to Paige with the last-ditch hope that everything could somehow be forgotten. Paige didn't reply.

The train soon trundled along tracks that coursed through heavy, waterlogged farmland under a grey, sagging sky. A Victorian stone bridge and the slow-moving river it crossed zoomed in and out of sight. Then a soggy golf course without players. High embankments with thorny bushes. The foul stench of a sewerage works stole in through an open window, provoking laughter amongst a gang of boys. A handful of people got off at an unmanned station the other side of a dense wood, rich with seasonal, golden leaves. The ticket inspector worked down the aisle as the train gathered speed again. Sally smiled at her friend when he took their tickets - Alicia sniffed and looked away. 'It isn't fair to punish people who've done nothing wrong,' Sally asserted, putting in her earphones. If it often wasn't any use for communication, her mobile had some wicked tunes downloaded on it.

In the next-to-last station before their destination, Alicia's loneliness got the better of her sulks. She gently nudged Sally who directly unplugged herself from her mobile. Alicia sounded genuinely fed up when she asked: 'What are you doing when we get off?'

'Do you want to come round to our place for tea?'

'I haven't enough time. I've to prepare for tonight's show.'

'I'd love to come - I really would - but I've heaps of homework, and Matthew wants to come round and...'

'It doesn't matter. My mum's taking me. One of her friends is coming along to give me support. And to shamelessly flirt with anything in trousers.'

'You always wanted your own shows. What's changed?'

'I can't stand dingy pubs and clubs where men stare at you like you know what. With their x-ray eyes I might as well be a stripper.'

'Everybody has to start somewhere and you know that because you've said it. As long as the men don't touch, let them see whatever they think they're seeing. My gran jokes its how to deal with most things with dangly bits. Our Lisa swears she isn't wrong.'

'The danger is I'll get stuck in dives. It's like I'm living in some seedy film that I'd turn off if it came on my TV.'

'Just make sure you keep up with college work so you've something to fall back on.'

'That sounds like my mum.'

'It's common sense. I'm determined to get into a good uni. There's no point leaving education when there are no real jobs to go into.'

'All that student debt scares me. My mum's been a bit crazy on a few credit cards and I can tell there's a whole lot of trouble brewing. And I hate academic stuff - I can do it, but I hate it. Shit! I'll be at it all Sunday because of tonight's gig. I hate my life. Sometimes I just want to leave home. Davie needs murdering and as for my mum, oh, give me strength.'

'Do you miss your dad? I missed mine when my parents split up. It's not so bad now I can go round to his place whenever I want to.'

'I... Sort of...' The thought of meeting her dad again made Alicia's heart cower behind untruths and uncertainties. '...Don't know how I feel about everything.' That was the best she could offer.

'I've an idea. Let's call at Morrison's café for a drink, a bun and a problem shared and all that.'

'What about Paige?' Alicia said, doubtfully. 'Anything we say in front of her will fly round college on Monday.'

'I don't think she's in a mood to listen right now, anyway.'

Ahead of the other disembarking passengers, Paige raced up the steps of the iron bridge over the tracks. By the time Alicia and Sally had crossed it and were exiting the station, their new foe was climbing in the passenger seat of her family's silver saloon. Her mother frostily glared through the windscreen, forcing the two girls to look down, hiding their giggles, until the car pulled away.

'Hi superstar! I'm buzzing about your concert tonight,' called a sugary voice so overly affected it was plain sickly.

'Liam, what are you doing here?'

'I was gutted to find out I'd missed your midweek extravaganza,' he announced from his perch on the station's periphery wall. 'Can't think why anybody would block me from their Facebook page, can you?'

'That would be one of the great mysteries,' answered Sally irreverently. 'And I didn't know you were eagerly hunting Alicia's autograph, bad boy.'

'I'm her biggest fan, don't you know?' Liam pulled a ten-pack from his England tracksuit top. He lit up a half-smoked tab with a lurid green disposable. 'She's a super sexy performer who's going all the way, aren't you, babe?'

'But not with you.'

'Don't entertain him, Sally. Let's get out of here. I'd sooner sit naked in a pit of tarantulas than spend time conversing with bulldog features. How does he know where I am all the time?'

'I like Twitter as much as the next person,' Liam replied, exhaling smoke from the corner of his mouth.

Sally took Alicia's arm. Liam watched them walk away in the direction of the town like a cat trying to decide which mouse he'd most like to pounce on. 'See you tonight, babe,' he called out, suddenly satisfied.

Sally turned her head and silently formed 'get lost' on her lips.

'Shake your booty,' Liam called, his laughter turning hollow as that guts and groin twisting loneliness enveloped him. He jumped down from the wall and, frowning, crushed the butt of his smoke underfoot. What kind of cruel old life is this?
Chapter Nine

For long seconds, Cameron Hunt blushed in astonishment at his Blackberry screen, and then he laughed. It was a strangely lewd cackle for a boy, certainly not an expression of innocent, heartfelt joy, and chubby Eddie Woods and gangly Billy Haigh had to see what had stirred it. They dropped from high corners of the metal climbing frame, the soles of their trainers slapping and scuffing on the gritty concrete. Eddie's flame mop and Billy's mousy crew crop were exposed when their respective brown and grey hoods slipped in the short race to Cameron. With his grey hoodie up and his wicked chortle, he sat cross-legged over the fulcrum of the see-saw, resembling a young Jedi pivoted between the light and dark sides of The Force.

'What you got?' Billy giddily demanded, his long legs hurdling the see-saw. The air steamed with his hot, faint panting as he craned his neck round Cameron's shoulder.

'Only this.' Smirking Cameron raised the screen level with Billy's hazel gogglers.

'Disgusting hound!'

'The bitch or the Alsatian?'

'Huh!' Billy's phiz screwed up. He scratched his spotty, angular beak. 'Both!'

'Is that real?' Over Cameron's other shoulder, Eddie stared uncomprehendingly at the video clip.

'Half-human, half-mutt - the puppies will be genuine mongrels.'

'How much will she get paid?'

'A month's supply of Bonio and a basket in a top kennel, walks not included.'

Billy and Eddie exchanged a stealthy look that agreed Cameron just wasn't funny sometimes. 'Who sent it?' Billy asked.

'Ryan Towner. He's a king of porn.'

'If that's his thing, watch him when he visits your house - he might want to splash around in your goldfish bowl.'

'It's an aquarium, minnow-brain.' Cameron stood up on the see-saw so that he towered over his pals. The beam remained perfectly balanced. 'And Ryan's not that much of a weirdo.'

'No, he's more of a freak.'

'You wouldn't say that to his face, Billy.'

'Come on, Davie, get down and see this,' Eddie called, looking over to the climbing frame.

With his scarlet hood up and his arms crossed over his chest, Davie Randall remained prostrate on top of the freezing cold monkey bars. Thoughtfully puckering his lips, he gazed into the heavens.

'She's a howling mad dog,' Eddie elaborated, not sounding convinced himself that such information was enticing. 'They've got her wearing a studded collar. It's totally sick.'

Davie's aloof search for patterns in the dense grey clouds went on. He could see that rain was coming. And that everybody needs shelter. 'When I get down, I'm off,' he said, eventually.

'Why?'

'I've already told you - I'm meeting my dad.'

'Oh yeah, right.' Eddie turned to Cameron and Billy: 'What are we doing?'

'Turning into icemen. It's too frigging cold to do anything else.' Cameron jumped down from the see-saw. He was an inch or so shorter than Eddie, let alone lanky Billy. 'My fingers and toes are numb.'

'We might as well go in.'

'But it's Saturday,' said Eddie, edgily.

'It's also, like, winter.'

'It's not that bad.'

'The sunloungers are all yours.'

'Heh heh.'

Of late, Eddie always preferred company other than that of his own. Alone, he'd come to find himself imagining a silent, drawn, pale visitor that even his happiest family memories couldn't exorcise. A newspaper agony aunt suspected he'd tired his mind by dwelling on 'things'. She'd urged him to get his dad to take him to their GP. Though Eddie didn't go for that school assembly stuff, he'd tried praying instead. The notion of being passed on to a headshrinker was as intimidating as his 'ghost'.

'My dad won't be bothered if we go into my room and mess about on my Xbox'.

Momentarily, Cameron and Billy seemed to be telepathic - Eddie's bedroom was never heated but it beat freezing your 'nads off outdoors and being hassled by overbearing parents. Mr Woods was usually cool. 'I'm in.'

'Me, too.'

'When are you going, Davie?'

'There's a bus into town in a few minutes.'

'We might as well get off now.'

'Catch you later, Randall.'

'Yeah.'

'See you.'

Davie sat up on the monkey bars. His legs dangling through them, he watched his pals trudge, hoodies up, hands in their jeans' pockets, across the frosty-white grass. They pushed each other between the unused swings on the way to the aluminium railings. Davie knew they'd scale them, cross the road, sneak through a gap in a hedge and an empty house's garden, and be down the road at Eddie's in no time. Unless larking around held them up. A few yards from the railings, Eddie leapt on Cameron and, as the pair wrestled, they toppled, thud, to the frozen earth. 'Timber!' Billy yelled through megaphone hands before flopping, spread-eagled, onto the collapsed pair. The heap of tangled limbs started bawling, laughing, protesting, but any exact meaning didn't carry to Davie's ears. He briefly let himself swing by both hands from a monkey bar, and then he let go. His feet stung warmly on impact with the concrete as if experiencing an aftershock of the events that had ruined his great enterprise.

Alex had been busted at work. The factory bosses had whacked him with a first and final warning and the mean promise that he'd got off lightly: if security had forced open his personal locker and discovered illegal merchandise - otherwise known as evidence - a most serious investigation would have ensued. Luckily, Alex had left his bag at home - he'd overslept and been in a frantic rush that morning. Not that he'd got away with everything. 'You deserve a belt round the lughole, Davie, don't you know? I haven't had any peace over a pint in the club. Loads of your bloody copies stick and our customers don't rate not finding out what happens at the end. The jokers want to know about free replacements and money back guarantees. As soon as I put them straight, they ridicule me. The name Honest Al had better not stick, for your sake.'

'It must be one of the old computers,' Davie mumbled, staring at his laces to avoid the heat in Al's eyes. His desire to laugh was plain dangerous! 'I'll work out which...'

'Too late for that!' Al prodded Davie in the chest. 'Didn't I tell you reconditioned computers were a bad investment? Count me out and then count your lucky stars you're not on your back seeing them. You can push the patience of even family only so far. See you around, little twat.'

On the one hand, it was a great consolation that Davie wouldn't be dealing with his thuggish, steroid-abusing cousin again; on the other hand, someone might as well have dumped a tin of splodgy, shit brown paint over Davie's big picture. No salesman with access to the wider market equalled no big profits. How was he expected to get enough money behind him so he could go on to make his fortune? Maybe his dad could advise him. There again, if his dad knew, how come he wasn't loaded?

Rich or poor, Davie had eagerly looked forward to meeting up with Dad ever since he'd answered the house phone: 'Hello. The Randall asylum.'

'Hey Davie, how are you? I'm thinking it's time we got together.'

It was almost as if he'd forgotten what Dad sounded like. Already.

'Are you there, kid?'

'Yes.'

'What about it, then?'

'It'll be... Hey, get off!'

'I need to speak,' Mum asserted, prising the phone from Davie's fingers.

'That's not fair.'

'Leave the room.'

But Davie refused to budge, ignoring Mum's strained, sour expression and her impatient pointing to the open door.

Talking to Dad, Mum sounded like an irate customer complaining about dodgy services and trying to make a bad deal good. Some advertisement for marriage, thought its offspring. To Davie's approval, Mum stressed that Alicia wasn't yet ready to see Dad. She turned up her nose as if her estranged husband's reply stank like a festering, maggoty wound. 'And I'm not altogether sure you're quite up to it either, no matter what you say. No, I can't discuss her any further - our son won't allow me any privacy.'

Davie's eyes blazed angrily and his lip curled into a sneer: didn't his mother's reaction prove that Alicia had something to do with the split? Surely Dad would set him straight? Then Davie would do whatever he had to do.

Lost in thought, the teenager put his butt on the chilly metal seat of the Perspex bus shelter as his very worst luck cockily strolled round the corner. The split-second he eyed Davie, Liam Briggs recklessly shot over the road, forcing a silver Renault to jerk and screech to a standstill. The shaken, furious motorist honked his horn before vrooming off, leaving burnt rubber to mark the spot where Liam might have copped it. Instead, Davie was snared. He'd outrun Liam twice in the past week alone, something his tracksuited pursuer acknowledged: 'Third time lucky,' he crowed, stepping into the shelter and grabbing his victim's arm. 'Slow off the mark today, boy.'

'Hi Liam...'

'I'm not in the mood for any of that. You owe me. Remember our deal?'

'I told you I never made much money.'

'And I didn't believe you.' Liam crushingly headlocked his captive. 'Going into town?'

'I can't breathe!'

'How come you're still whining, then? You know what I think?'

'Wha-urgh!'

'I think you should pay my fare into town so we can access the lovely cash machines.'

'I haven't got...'

'Find it. I'm sure you can be persuaded to look that little bit harder.'

Liam's grip caused a desolate, harsh rasping to spew from Davie's throat.

'I'll take that as a yes.' Smiling deviously, Liam let go. 'Isn't it the sweetest feeling when we get along?'

'I'm not lying, Liam. I've had to stop making films.' Tearfully flushed, Davie rubbed his sore neck. 'Our Alec's been done for selling them and my computer's packed in.'

'Don't give it to me about teething problems. I'll knock yours out if you make me sick of hearing you. You. Are. Paying. Me. Understand? Ah, here's our bus.' Liam signalled to its driver with an outstretched arm. The green single-decker's brakes made a flat whooshing sound as if the vehicle was deflating as it slowed down. Liam pushed Davie in the back. 'After you.'

'Ok, ok,' said Davie, nervously realising he had a chance yet. A risk worth taking. He hopped on board. The driver also worked as a Robert De Niro look-alike, and he arrogantly sniffed, chewing gum - dealing with kids cramped his style. 'One into town, please,' Davie said quietly, putting his money on the ticket machine's metal tray. De Zero - as his colleagues called him - pressed buttons and a single ticket whirred off the roll and out of the machine. Davie quickly tore it off and scooted down the aisle of the bus. From the back seat, he watched Liam fail to steal a ride.

'He's got my ticket,' the youthful bruiser claimed, raising his voice and pointing down the bus.

'He bought a single,' De Zero insisted, holding out a hand. 'Give me your fare or get off my bus.'

'Hey!' Liam shouted. 'You forgot my ticket.'

Several passengers followed his line of vision and turned to Davie.

'Because I remembered I'm going into town on my own,' he defiantly announced.

Even along the length of the bus, Davie could see Liam's eyes filling up with tears of rage. Ker-ching! The trick had paid out. His foe's pockets really were empty, and it's too damn easy to be outmanoeuvred when you've nothing. De Zero impetuously revved the engine. Liam looked pleadingly at the passengers in the front seats. Either no one had spare cash or no one was willing to give him any. Putting a twisted, ugly face on defeat, Liam jumped off the bus and onto the pavement. The doors closed. As the vehicle pulled away, mad Liam banged the window beside Davie with the ball of his fist. He'd so have dragged the brat off the bus if it wasn't full of witnesses! Davie gleefully waved through the grimy rear window. Liam's threat grew smaller, more distant, disappearing when the bus turned a corner. Or had it gone? Realising Liam would vow to make him pay in every which way, Davie's grin vanished.

Though it was a relatively short ride into town, the stop-starts to drop off and to pick up had Davie wriggling in his seat. It got worse. De Zero was ahead of his timetable, and he parked up at the stand alongside the row of empty and dying shops at the heart of that downbeat estate. William Hill's, Kiosk News and Boden the Family Butcher's were the only lasting concerns. Davie couldn't even pass time by noseying through the latter's window - the pig carcasses lynched on big hooks concealed the shop's insides. Nevertheless, its comings and goings clearly had much less to do with pop glory than they had to do with the knacker's yard. Alicia's nothing but a lamb to the slaughter, her brother reckoned. Karma might work, after all.

After a quick puff on the pavement, De Zero got going again. Davie started biting his nails at the traffic lights from where the bus would turn left, go up a steep little hill, past the post office sorting office and \- a right turn - into the station. He'd grown out of the habit last year, but, of course, things change and change again. Before Dad had left - and as cold and strange as it might sound - Davie couldn't say that he'd felt especially close to him. In fact, the whole family just seemed to be 'there', and each member did whatever they did, which as often as not annoyed the hell out of a parent, a spouse or a teenager. Anarchy was a simple enough system while Mum could be relied on to put everything back in its place. Only they'd taken it for granted that she'd remain happy with hers.

The shock of turning into a boy from a broken home had made Davie think like never before. His parents had worked since he and his sister were infants; but was that all they'd ever done? Davie reckoned he'd learned much of what he knew about right and wrong from his grandparents, picking up other stuff at school, from books, TV, hearsay. If Mum and Dad sincerely believed that education only matters because qualifications supposedly help you into work, in a world of fewer and fewer jobs that require brain power or that pay enough for a decent standard of living, they probably figured learning's value had crashed. Were they so uneducated that they could never put two and two together and calculate that their too low wages and credit cards were a formula for ending up at each others' throats? The whole ridiculous set up made staying together impossible, irrespective of whether they did the 'right' things like put food on the table and clothes on their family's backs. Humph! When he thought along those lines, Davie went some way to understanding - as much as it hurt - why Mum had cheated. And that's why you had to sympathise with Dad. What did it feel like in his shoes? That question led to a bizarre, gigantic puzzle: who were his parents other than the roles assigned by the names 'Mum' and 'Dad'? Getting off the bus, Davie guessed he was taking the first steps to finding out about Mr Ian Randall.

They'd arranged to meet for a bite to eat at the Wetherspoon's round the corner from the bus station and in the direction of the precinct. It was a plan that had sent Davie's mother up in arms: her son initiated into hard drinking? Over her dead body! In a flash she was back on the telephone. Dad responded, so Davie gathered, by pointing out that it would be good of her to see his best intentions for once, and, as he was out of work - remember? - how could she expect him to afford a snazzy gaff? As far as Davie was concerned, nothing was up for debate. It wasn't as if Dad drank more than most other people. 'He isn't a flaming alcoholic!'

'And I'm making sure you don't turn into one.'

'I'll be having a soft drink. And look at the places our Alicia sings in. Try to stop me seeing Dad and I'll move out to Grandma's!'

'Have it your way, Davie. Don't come running to me when it ends in, oh, blast!' Mum slammed the phone down by way of goodbye to Dad. She pushed past Davie and ran upstairs to her room.

The moment Davie saw him waiting on the pavement, he knew Dad had kept his word about staying sober, and it was a source of relief, vindication and confidence. Did he somehow look different? Not unrecognisably so, but, of course, yes, he was thinner - far less paunchy - and his hair had grown a tad scruffy. Not that it was an embarrassing stranger to shampoo. What's more, Davie had never seen his father dressed like an old rocker in a casual, unfashionable suit of Levi denim. His green, suede Samba trainers and faded navy T-shirt with the Greek islands print were familiar enough. They solemnly shook hands before falling into a restrained yet emotional hug. 'Let's get inside, son, it's enough to freeze the what-nots off brass monkeys,' Dad said, shakily, wiping his gleaming eyes. He bounced up the few steps to the entrance. 'Had breakfast?' Dad paused with his hand on the door, scrutinising his reflection in the glazing. 'Or is it dinner time?'

'What's on the menu?'

'Not food poisoning, hopefully. You'll have to read it. I'm going for a fry up and a coffee. Cheap and cheerful, and they can't get them wrong.'

'I'll have the same,' Davie said, shyly, all fidgety hands, scratching his elbow and then his head.

While Dad went to order at the bar, Davie looked around for seats. Many of the tables were taken; more by shoppers filling hungry holes or sipping one or two for the road home as by the hard drinking drop outs and goons of Mum's fears. The wit of a colossal bald man with a warrior Boudica tattoo on his left cheek had a gang of Leeds United supporters in stitches at the end of the bar. Good thing he didn't feel like making anybody need stitches, Davie thought. Though he'd later boast to his mates that he'd stood tall amongst tough guys, the young lad preferred the seats along the back wall; they were more securely tucked between partitions of wood panels and pea green frosted glass. He picked his way towards an unoccupied pod as if the carpet was made of eggshells, almost dying of embarrassment when a fresh-faced waitress with her silky black hair in pigtails crossed his path: Jodie was the elder sister of one of his schoolmates, Ben. 'Hello,' Davie said, affecting an unnaturally deep voice.

'Hi.'

'I'm...'

She swished onwards with plates of scampi, salad and fries.

'Yes. Right.'

Davie slipped into a seat and furtively watched people doing nothing special. What was the big deal about drinking?

After what seemed an age, Dad brought their coffees over. Having put them on the table, he ruffled Davie's hair. 'Everybody at home ok? School ok?' he chirpily asked, squeezing onto his seat between the table and the partition. 'No new disasters to overcome?'

Davie studied his dad. Was it really him? This man had a go easy manner - Dad had shouted around the house, making up pointless rules as he went along.

'You haven't lost your tongue?'

'Everything's sort of ok.'

'Sort of?'

'School's the same as ever.'

'And home?'

'It's different at home.'

'I expect it is. We'll get there in the end.'

'Get where?'

'Wherever we're going.'

'Are you' - Davie gazed intensely across the table - 'going away?'

'I'm staying down the road at Uncle Dan's house, kid.'

'Oh, I haven't seen him in ages...' Davie faltered, unsure of what to say next. 'Do you...?'

'Do I what?'

'Does he still like motorbikes? What's his place like?'

'He does, and messy.' Dad chuckled.

Davie noticed that his dad continued to wear his gold wedding band. Force of habit or a clue regarding the contents of his heart?

'Uncle Dan's at his girlfriend's most of the time. I've slowly got his house into some kind of state fit to live in. Well, the kitchen no longer classifies as a hovel. You'll be able to come over for tea soon enough. You're still a fan of pizza?'

'Is it that hard to find work? I mean a paid job.'

'I expect something will turn up. It had better do - my redundancy money went nowhere.' Dad tried not to look peed off, but, beneath his awkward smile, he was worried about the money he was spending on breakfasts. 'I'll end up having to rob a bank.'

'With Uncle Dan's gun?' Davie was awestruck.

'You remember that? And I'm joking, son. Don't tell your mother what I said, for Christ's sake, or I'll need the gun to shoot myself.'

'Oh right... Erm, ha ha!' Dad doing the funnies might take some getting used to. In the meantime, serious issues needed explaining. 'I can't understand,' Davie said, his face straightening, 'why people can't get jobs straight away. They say on the television that...'

'No, Davie, no,' Dad grimly shook his head. 'Don't believe everything you see on the goggle box.'

'I don't. But they say stuff like people who want it and look for it, get it. Everything is there for...'

'Everything looks easy when your hardest task in life involved removing a silver spoon so you can mouth off,' Dad again interrupted, peeved.

'That's what I was wondering about, sort of. How do you start out when you haven't got any money in the first place?'

Dad sighed heavily.

'Well, how do you do it?'

'In reality, ordinary people who get breaks are few and far between. Money generally stays with the people who were born into it.' He lightly punched his own palm. 'Hard work only ever gave me a bad back - and that's the truth - though I don't suppose I should be telling you it.'

'Should you lie to me?'

'In spite of the odds, a young lad should never think about giving up. What's the point of living if you do that? Just don't go out of your way to hurt people unnecessarily. Too many rotten souls are willing to do that. Got that?'

Davie nodded. Looking down into the froth of his coffee, he knew that he was none the wiser.

'Are you fretting because you're leaving school in the near future?'

'I'm going to college. That's if Mum can afford it now.'

'We will find a way.'

'One day, I want to set up a computer shop. I could easily succeed with money behind me.'

'We could all do anything if we had the money behind us. I suppose this explains why you've been pirating movies and music.'

'It's done with,' Davie said frankly, assured by Dad's calm tone that a roasting wasn't on the way. 'Alex got busted flogging them at work and some people said my copies weren't up to scratch.'

'So you'd gone into business with hopeless Al. Getting out of business with him can't be the end of the world.'

'Meathead Liam Briggs might bring it on. He thinks I'm sitting on top of a multi-million pound industry.'

'He does? I want to know about it the next time he tries to menace you. I can nip that in the bud if I can't dip into any family fortune. Do you hear?'

'Loud and clear.'

'Now about home: what's the story?'

'Mum isn't with him anymore...'

Ian seemed to have trouble controlling his facial muscles. He squinted, sat back, drummed his fingers on the table.

'...And I don't get on with them. I wish I could move out.'

'Did you and Alicia ever get on? How's it got worse?'

'After what they did.'

'And what was that?'

'What they did to you. I know Alicia did something.'

'Look Davie...' Leaning forward, Dad put his elbows on the table and his palms together, as if praying with open eyes to his son. 'Maybe it was always on the cards. Over the years you drift apart or lose yourself, and one fine morning you wake up and you're someone else. Someone you never wanted to be. It hurts like mad. But you've got to face up to it so you can get through it and change for the better.'

Davie didn't look too convinced.

'You're probably too young for that to make sense - just trust me and let it go. Holding grudges against your mum or your sister - people you love at the bottom of your heart - will mess you up in the end. Alicia's such a naïve kid...'

'She's slyer than you all realise!'

'Calm it. She didn't turn me or your mother into god knows what. Our marriage did that. We lived wrong. Our priorities were wrong. We became so much like the overpriced rubbish we bought into, we were never going to last. I don't claim to understand everything - how can anybody get it all? - but I do know it isn't for you to dig our holes any deeper. And that means your sister - my daughter - is one of us and always will be.' He held out his hand. 'No crossing your heart or swearing on the bible, shake on it, man to man.'

'But...'

'No ifs or buts. We've got to make peace now or risk being a warring family forever. And I've seen too many people fall into that trap.'

Davie reluctantly acquiesced. They sombrely shook hands over the table.

'And while we're on the subject - let your mum know I want to come over some time it's convenient. We've important things to discuss and I need to go into the attic.'

'What's up there?' Davie's curiosity overcame his simmering ire.

'A guitar, a few books, maybe some other bits and pieces.'

'You play guitar?'

'I did, and I've enough time on my hands to give it another shot. I can always sell it when it sinks in that I'm useless. It's probably worth a few hundred quid.'

'Did you play in a band?'

'Don't be so amazed.'

'You were better than Alicia, I'll bet.' Davie felt oddly proud.

'Be careful what you stake on that.' Dad smiled modestly. 'Alicia can sing and she looks good - it was her temperament that was letting her down. We'll see how she goes now she's gained some experience. For now, can you remember to let your mum know?'

'You can rely on me. And I'll really give Alicia the benefit of the doubt.' An instrument collecting dust in the attic? Who was this musician who hadn't tried to enforce one dumb rule? Who was behind Mum's glam? Davie realised that, if he had no idea about his parents, he couldn't be sure, one way or the other, about his sister.

'Good lad and, ah, here's our nosh.' Dad rubbed his hands together.

'The cutlery and condiments are on the table in the corner,' pretty Jodie informed them, putting two warm plates on their table. Each plate contained a couple of crispy rashers of bacon, two well-browned sausages, a fried egg, beans, mushrooms, a fried tomato and toast. 'Enjoy your meal.'

Watching her hips sway as she zipped between the busy tables towards the serving hatch gave Davie an indescribable feeling. He couldn't even say whether it was a pleasure or a pain. Would life always stir and shake him up?

'You wanted tomato ketchup?' Dad dropped a generous variety of sauce sachets on the table and handed his boy a knife and a fork. 'I've hankered for this all morning,' he declared, squeezing brown sauce over his bacon.

'I'm half-starved, too. I just had toast before going out.' Davie bit the corner off a tomato ketchup sachet.

'You've been someplace else?'

'Knocking about with a few guys.'

'It's time us guys cleared our plates. Tuck in.'

Just a few minutes later, mopping up the juices on his plate with toast, Dad opined that, although their fry-ups are generally decent, chain pubs lack character and atmosphere. 'We could move on and contest a game of pool,' he concluded.

'You'll have to wait on - I can't eat as fast as you.'

'I'll help you.' Dad winked and pinched a sausage from Davie's plate.

The pub down the street had a handwritten sign in the window that welcomed families in the afternoon. Even so, a lonely landlord propped up the other side of the bar, entertained by the Sun's horse racing section. 'Exactly how I like it sometimes,' Dad said, slotting a fifty pence coin into the pool table after buying a pint of lager and a coke. The pool balls rumbled through the belly of the table. Dad racked them up in the triangle, one by one. 'Got any better at shooting a cue for real?'

'I don't live on my games console.'

'No?'

'No.' From the rack on the wall Davie selected the sleekest cue. He treated its tip using the blue chalk that had been left on the baulk cushion. 'You won't beat me easy, Dad.'

'Glad to hear it. Heads or tails?'

'Heads.'

'Shall I break?'

As he'd always done on family holidays, Dad proved to be a rusty player. After potting difficult balls and expertly controlling the cue ball with spin or side, he suddenly missed an easy shot that made him moan about realigning his senses. He edged the first game, and made it too obvious that he let his son win one back. 'I'm not a cry baby,' Davie complained. 'I can take a loss.'

'Excellent. Because this one's the decider.' Dad drained his pint down to the last few mouthfuls.

Davie drew first blood, neatly tucking away a couple of yellows. Dad riposted with a couple of reds. A yellow dropped. Two reds. Three yellows. In no time they were down to the black. Davie's attempted cut into a centre pocket rattled in and out of the jaws: the black settled tight against the baulk cushion. Dad's eyes narrowed; he passed his cue from one hand to the other and back again as he figured out angles. Finally, he crouched to a shooting position, powerfully slamming the cue ball into the black. Almost too fast for the naked eye, both balls zigzagged from one end of the table to the other. A bottom pocket swallowed one. The white. 'Two shots.' Davie punched the air.

'Hold it. The black's still rolling.' Gradually slowing. Trickling towards the bottom right hand pocket. It hovered on the lip, and then dropped. 'You win.' Dad seemed pleased in spite of his defeat.

'You meant to pot both balls in the same pocket?'

'They were in the position, more or less, of an exhibition shot someone once taught me. I wanted to see if some magic had stayed with me. We both kind of win.'

'Even if the black was supposed to go down first?'

'You don't miss a trick.' Dad placed his hand on his son's shoulder. 'You know, it's time to put you on a bus... Sugar, I almost forgot to mention it.'

'What?'

'Someone will want to meet you soon.'

'Who?' Had his dad got a new woman already? Did that fact explain why he'd been so cool? Davie's suspicious indignation manifested when he snapped: 'And when?'

'Soon enough. He's a Jack Russell called Sherlock.'

'A yapping dog?'

'Man's best friend other than his son. So let's stay in your mother's good books and get you home punctually.'

Liam Briggs was smoking a roll-up at the entrance to the bus station. Davie refused to meet his eye. Dad issued a quick, mean glare. Though Liam audaciously scowled, he didn't follow them to the stand where Davie's bus was ticking over, ready to pull out.

'Mind how you go. I'll be in touch shortly. Phone me whenever you need to. All my love, son. And pass my love on to Alicia.'

'And I won't forget to mention the stuff in the attic.'

'Bravo.'

Ian Randall discreetly waved as the wheels of the bus rolled forward. Didn't do too badly there, old man, he thought, hurriedly backtracking to the station's entrance. But Briggs had gone. He wouldn't present too much of a problem, would he?
Chapter Ten

At the bottom of the stairs, on a folded white sheet mottled and dashed with several shades of paint, a battered, black guitar case leant against a classic, fifty watt Marshall amplifier. The guitar case was covered in discoloured, peeling stickers of your friendly neighbourhood super heroes, relics of a breakfast cereal promotion that everybody's TV had raved about with snap, crackle and pop back in the day. At the side of the amp nearest the shoe rack, which was a striking display of newish leather and fashion labels, a dozen books were neatly piled, the largest at the bottom, the smallest at the top. A shiny harmonica rested on the top book's cover; its position seemed to underscore the publisher's boast that Jack London's very best short stories were printed on its pages, now yellowing with age.

In the kitchen, another famous genre of words could be heard - final instructions from parent to son. Presently, a frowning Davie Randall pushed through the door. Dressed in skin-tight jeans and an electric blue T-shirt, he strode across the hall, claiming a seat on the amp like a head roadie with an attitude. He cooled it. Unwillingly smiled. Opening up the guitar case's oxidising latches, he attentively lifted out a polished, sunburst Telecaster. Wow! For a moment, it seemed he had stopped breathing in his reverence. Putting the leather strap over his shoulder, Davie rested the edge of the guitar's body across his lap exactly as real players did. What next? His nails tapped the white scratch plate. Though he'd spent over an hour conscientiously cleaning the instrument the previous evening, its strings had been a problem: all six had rusted to some extent and produced a guileless, flat discord whenever he lightly strummed them. Surfing the internet to learn about tuning up had proved fruitless - the information he'd found made sense to his eyes but not to his ears. It's only rock and roll and he couldn't do it.

Mum stepped into the hallway: stopping at the bottom of the stairs and treating Davie to a look that might as well have said, 'Don't you dare catch the music bug,' she called, 'Alicia, are you ready, love?'

'In a minute!'

'Why do you have to go out because Dad's coming? He hasn't any bad feelings about whatever Alicia did.'

'She didn't do anything, Davie. Will you get it into your head?' Mum gently crow-pecked her son, emphasising her point. He rubbed the spot on his skull though it didn't hurt. 'It's a shame Alicia has to venture out, but it's unavoidable. She wants to be at her most dazzling to sing at a wedding reception tonight. People expect an extra effort for their big occasions.'

Mum was wearing her black, wool blend coat that draped down over the tops of her black, thigh high, stack heel boots. Davie considered that she looked dressed for a kinky funeral. He said nothing, however, letting the guitar strings tunelessly ring out like a feeble substitute for tolling bells. How big was this occasion, right here, in this house?

Mum's leather boots squeaked as she turned back towards the kitchen. Seconds later, Alicia bounded down the stairs. She grabbed her quilted black coat from the hanger over the shoe rack, snatched her Ugg boots, and - as if Davie didn't exist - also made for the kitchen. 'You don't have to go, Alicia, Dad's cool,' her brother said, softly. She glanced witheringly over her shoulder before disappearing through the door.

She doesn't need to buy a thing, Davie scornfully reflected, and escaping for the meantime will solve nothing. But that was his sister all over - a stickleback darting about in a scummy beck, pretending she's a dolphin elegantly gliding on the surf of a beautiful, turquoise ocean. As soon as anything reminds her of the truth, she dives and hides amongst weeds and corroding junk.

Davie returned to the guitar. How do you make the strings sing?

'Right, Davie,' Mum called, 'we're off. Get something from the fridge for dinner. Don't make a mess. Pass our regards onto... Your father.'

'Yeah.' Twang! The back door clicked as it closed. They'd really gone. How sickening, thought Davie.

Mum dropped a gear and cruised behind a white van. They were descending the steep hill leading to another of the town's arterial roads. 'You didn't say what you need, Alicia, babe. Where's it to be first?'

'I was thinking that I won't be able to get them in town. Can we ride out to Leeds?'

'I'm intrigued. What's so special? You're after a bit of razzle-dazzle, aren't you?'

'You know as well as I do that the shops in the town stock hardly anything worth buying.'

'I'd hoped we wouldn't be all day. And my boots aren't suitable for a longish drive. Isn't there anywhere closer that's good enough? What do you want? I might be able to make a suggestion.'

Alicia adjusted her seat belt as if it had been too tight.

'You're not expecting a full outfit? We can't afford one right now.'

'Not an outfit just...' Alicia stared through the windscreen at the grimy registration plate of the white van. It braked for the traffic lights on the approach to the bridge over the rail tracks. No coded message existed in the registration plate's letters and numbers that would help her. Just another incoherent jumble. 'Some things.'

'Come on, like what?' Mum asked, braking.

'I'll know when I see them.'

'You expect me to drive all the way to Leeds to... Hold on - I knew it - Davie's right. You're avoiding your father.'

'Don't be silly!'

'You've behaved strangely ever since you knew he was due to visit.'

'That's not true.'

'This must be the very first time you've sat in the passenger seat and haven't tried to blast out a CD on full volume. It's not you.'

'I won't want to go anywhere with my eyes puffy and messed up.'

Alicia's emotional whine caused Cathy to blow a huge sigh, her head rocking back into the cushioned head rest. What use is a green light if you don't know where you're driving? She accelerated nonetheless. Alicia turned her head to hide her face. It was no view out of the side window - they were passing the crumbling, high, red brick wall of the largest scrap yard for miles.

At the knock on the front door, Davie propped the neck of the guitar against the radiator and got up off the amp. He swung the door open. In spite of the harsh nip in the air, Dad was without a coat and in his best blue and red check shirt, newest jeans, and those posh brown shoes he got last Christmas and had never previously worn. 'That was quick, Davie,' he said, with a grin he might have copied from a TV ad. 'Oh, I see - you've been rocking on the dark side of the door. Or something along those lines.'

'Hardly. I can't get it in tune. I hope you're not bothered about me having a go. Me and Mum went up into the attic and sorted through everything.'

'She said she'd do it when I phoned. Is your mum there? Can I come in?' Having to ask stirred a strange, angry melancholy. Ian clapped his hands and rubbed them together, generating heat. 'I won't keep her for long and you're letting in the cold keeping me stood here.'

'You can come in, obviously. It's your house. But they've gone out to get some stuff for Alicia's show tonight.'

Like a black cloud disappointment scudded across Dad's face.

'Er... Shall I make a cup of tea?'

Dad's eyes were blank, his thoughts elsewhere. Then he snapped out of it - his gaze focussed on Davie, if his smile didn't return. 'Make one for Uncle Dan as well. Same as mine. I'll go drag him out of his car.'

Davie looked beyond Dad's shoulder: a maroon saloon was parked alongside the kerb. The driver wasn't visible from the doorway. 'Ok. I'll shut the door. Come straight in when you're ready.'

Dad turned to the drive to fetch his brother.

As Davie stepped into the hall balancing two cuppas in his right hand, Uncle Dan greeted him by feigning eye-popping shock: 'Jeez, look who's grown since I last saw him. How long is it?'

Davie had no idea, and he jolted back, spilling burning hot tea over the sides of the cups. He pulled a face at the just about bearable pain. So this unshaven, strapping mountain in a leather biker's jacket, torn jeans, and concrete crusted boots was Uncle Dan. He smelled funny. Patchouli. How come a man like that got a gun licence? No wonder people said the world's mad.

'It's far too long, Dan, that's what it is. And you'll have to pull those boots off - soil the carpet and Davie's life won't be worth living. Keep the great clumsy things on the sheet she's put the amp and stuff on.'

'I'll do it for the kid, not for you.'

While sipping char in the living room, Uncle Dan regaled his brother and nephew with his bad ass biker exploits. It was plain that Ian was gutted because his wife and Alicia had gone out - Dan's enthusiasm was about covering up the situation's awkwardness as much as anything, or at least it was initially. He got so carried away with his dream to ride hard and fast across the US that he bragged his Harley would be ready for some throttle in a week or so. 'And that's when you look out of the window, Davie, and see a great flock of pigs flying by,' Dad commented, reining Dan in.

'Just when it was getting good,' laughed Dan, slapping his knee.

'Never mind, Uncle Dan,' said Davie, thinking he's a nut, sort of likeable, but a nut all the same.

'Although I'd like to, we can't stay long,' Dad explained now Dan's tales of high living on the road had run out of gas. 'Your uncle has to finish building a brick wall, no rest for the wicked or Satan's Slaves. I thought I'd be saying hello to you kids, arranging a date to have you over, and ironing out one or two things with your mother. Was it too much to ask that they stay in this once? They could have gone shopping afterwards. It's only eleven o'clock as it is.'

'Yeah, well...' Surely Dad understood some of what was going on in Alicia's head? But there again, perhaps not: a great deal was being kept in the dark. 'I thought that as well.'

'It's out of order,' offered Uncle Dan. 'Love and money - who invented them?'

'I've seen you so it hasn't been a complete waste of time. While you're here, can you play a tune?'

'Things sure as hell need lightening up,' chortled Uncle Dan. 'And I've forgotten how bad you are!'

'We haven't got time,' Dad stiffly, evasively retorted.

'We can make it,' Dan insisted, his eyes glinting mischievously. 'A few bricks can wait a little to be put into a wall.'

'Twist my arm any further up my back and I won't be fit to do anything.'

Dan held his rough paws in the air, protesting his innocence and smirking provocatively.

'Go get it, Davie. But don't drag the amplifier in - we don't want your neighbours rioting. And that's before we fret about your mother's floors.'

'Thank your lucky stars our old lady isn't here,' Dan reminisced. 'She was Rocker Randall's biggest fan as I recall.'

'Old Nick's favourite tunes weren't to her taste, that's all.'

'Old Nick?'

'Some used to call rock and roll the devil's music, Davie. Old Nick's another name...'

'For the devil. I get it. And the amp's no use right now, anyway. The guitar lead didn't work. I threw it out.'

'You'll want to throw him and the guitar out once you've heard music massacred,' quipped Uncle Dan.

'That's it, bro, laugh at your own jokes. No one else will.'

Davie handed Dad his axe and plonked down beside Dan on the opposite sofa. The lad watched with a kind of mortified awe as Dad's fingers fumbled, shaping a chord. Everybody grimaced when Dad's comeback strum was a dull, scratchy flop. 'Right, it's that out of tune,' he said, pretending to be surprised. Turning the tuning head of the deep E, he plucked the rusty string and it vibrated mutedly. 'That'll have to do. Now for the A string.' Dad compared its sound to that of the E string held down with his index finger at the first, second, third, - Davie counted - fourth, fifth fret. Whatever Dad was trying to do, didn't seem to be working. 'My ears are shot,' he complained.

'You lost what you never had.'

Davie wanted to tell Dan to shut it.

Boing-urrr!

'Wait!' Dad exclaimed. 'That's more like it. Getting there. Yes. Just like riding a bike.' Dad smugly laughed in his brother's direction. He proceeded to tune the remaining four strings, not without problems. When he'd finally done, he strummed a chord. 'I've still got the A, hip-hip-hooray!' But his bullishness wilted when he tried to change chords. 'My fingers are like planks of wood.'

'Nothing changes.'

'Oh yeah?' Dad's scowl seemed to say. He awkwardly ran up and down major and minor scales, gradually freeing his fingers so that they might eventually flow. In his intense concentration, his tongue curled out of the corner of his mouth. Dan clapped and hollered, and Davie sheepishly sniggered along, mentally praying to some unknown god of music that Dad would prove his too loud brother wrong. Davie was fast revising his opinion of Uncle Dan!

'Right,' Dad said, determinedly. 'I've got it. Here we go. One song only.' It was only when he tapped a foot four times on the laminate floor that Davie noticed Dad's socks were odd; one black, the other blue. 'Back when I was younger so much younger than today...'

Cathy watched a pair of swans effortlessly sailing over choppy waters to the edge of the municipal park's lake. Waves lapped against, and splashed up onto, the cracked, subsiding concrete bank. The icy breeze that swept across the lake stung her face's flesh and scythed through her body no matter how tightly she pulled her black coat around her. Strands of blond hair were blown in and out of her eyes. Oblivious to her discomfort, one of the swans dipped its head underwater, searching for food. Its mate looked into the breeze, paddling webbed feet against the waves, treading water.

'Remember the story of the ugly duckling? You've grown into a beauty, too, but you've always been loved.' She put her arm round Alicia's shoulder and whispered into her ear: 'Your eyes are dry now. How about getting into the car and trying to get back in time to see Dad? Davie wouldn't have said everything is fine if it isn't. And I can sense that all's well.'

'I daren't!' Alicia wriggled and shook off her mother's arm. She hid her face in her hands. 'I don't know what he thinks of me.'

'That you're his daughter, and our love as parents is unconditional. It's his wife he'll never forgive.'

'You don't want to be forgiven,' Alicia sullenly countered, her hands dropping.

'I don't need to be forgiven by him or any man. I'm concerned about you, and how you might look back on this when you're older.'

'So it's about your image in my eyes? How do you think I see myself? I know I've done wrong. He's my dad - I'm some sort of monster. I hate myself.'

'Oh Alicia, stop punishing yourself,' Cathy implored. 'Didn't I cheat?' There, she'd said it out loud. 'How can it be your fault? If you'd said something straight away...'

'The moment I caught you behaving like a slut!'

'You'd have felt terrible for causing us to row,' Cathy soldiered on, despite the piercing thrust of her daughter's words. 'We'd very likely have broken up back then. Don't you see? I should have ended it. I should have seen the type of man Michael was when he offered a naïve young girl money. Don't blame yourself for what I've done and what I've failed to do. Your father can be a reasonable man. He'll see the position I put... Now - up on our feet - let's get into the car.'

'I'm scared.'

'Once you've spoken to each other you'll wonder why you ever worried. It's always the case.'

'These things you say to make me feel better make me feel worse!'

'You overcome something by defeating your fear of it. You can be as brave as anyone - just try.'

Alicia's eyes scanned the lake's choppy waters. Last December, in an especially severe cold snap, a chronically depressed middle-aged woman had driven to the park around midnight, abandoned her car by the gates, and walked in the darkness through the avenue of oaks and horse chestnut trees, across the race course, and down to the lake. It must have been the loneliest final journey - the woman threw herself through the thick ice and drowned. Alicia knew that she could never do such a thing, yet she sometimes believed she most easily understood people who couldn't go on. Why was everything and everybody so difficult? Over her ankles, then up to her knees, her waist, her neck, Alicia envisaged walking out into deepening, murky waters until she was submerged. A duality of terror and morbid comfort caused her to shudder, her skin erupting with goosebumps. She blinked, her head turning, as if evading her own imagination. The swan lifted its head above the water. Unperturbed by the icy depths, the beautiful white birds swam away from the bank. Alicia wondered, would she ever be strong?

'It isn't just this business, is it? What else is worrying you?'

Rather than answer, Alicia watched the swans climb out of the lake onto the manmade island. They waddled into the copse of leafless trees and towards the duck houses. And then in a tremulous whisper, she confessed: 'I thought show business was about inspiration when it might be the sleaziest thing on earth.'

'Babe, the best made plans sometimes need tearing up. No one is going to criticise you for not yet knowing what you're going to do with your life. You're so young.'

'My teachers, the careers officers, my tutors - they've all said we should know what we're aiming for by our age. What if they're right and I get left behind? If I fail as a singer, I'll have doubly failed because my college work is suffering.'

'Those late nights, especially on weekends, are doing you no good, babe. At your age you need your rest. Why don't you shelve singing until you've finished college? And now we're being frank, I've got to say that man is detestable.'

'Bogeyman Boden?'

'The one and the same. I wanted to stop you dealing with him, only with everything else going on, I thought any intervention might seem controlling. You are eighteen.'

'And I had the crazy idea that being an adult was going to be cool.'

'Why don't you take the pressure off and sing for fun instead of treating it as a career? Join that noisy rock group at college that wanted you to front them. I'm sure they're nice boys.'

'Mostly.'

'What do you mean 'mostly'?'

'Boys will be boys.' Alicia pulled a face. 'I'll think about it.'

'And what about tonight?'

'It's a wedding. I can't let people down on their big day.' Alicia stood up, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her quilted coat for warmth. 'We'd better go.'

'That's my girl.' Cathy locked her arm into her daughter's and they trod along the bank towards the path to the car park.

Across the football pitches, under goal posts, a man in a fishtail parka threw a stick for his golden Labrador to fetch. Other dog walkers hadn't strayed so far from the car park; while their pets ran and sniffed around, they mooched along the race course rails with their hoods up or their hats pulled down. A husky drifted onto the deserted playground; it cocked its leg and pissed at the bottom of the slide. Cathy tut-tutted and shook her head. 'I've been thinking,' Alicia said, too preoccupied to be disgusted by dogs or their owners, 'can you remember saying you'd pay for a portfolio?'

'Modelling?' Cathy asked with some surprise.

'Would you still help out? Maybe it's my way forward. I might even get music business contacts through it. Everyone knows I've some chance at modelling. Even the bitches.'

'I don't know why you resisted the idea before,' Cathy said, her face paling at the thought of a portfolio's expense. The change in their circumstances demanded that the household tighten their belts. Drastically. And what if, when everything settled down, Alicia had another change of heart? It would be typical of her. Yet who else would invest in her daughter's future? Her kids each had one chance to grow and develop. 'We'll get you a portfolio,' Cathy stoically promised. 'Right now, however, I'm more interested in getting the kettle on. By now your father will likely have gone, anyway...'

'That's mega cool, Dad. Show me some more lead guitar.'

'I'm afraid Uncle Dan won't get paid until he finishes his job.' Ian had noticed his brother repeatedly glancing at his mobile in the last few minutes.

Dan drained his second cup of tea and, rising from the sofa, looked apologetically at his young nephew. 'Another time, Davie, huh? Time to put my big boots on and my back into it.'

'Did you get the card off the dash before you came in?'

Dan produced an envelope from the inside of his leather jacket. He handed it to his brother who handed it to his son. It was addressed to Alicia in Dad's best handwriting. 'Make sure your sister gets that.'

'No problem,' Davie said, nodding earnestly.

Holding the harmonica between his lips, Ian lifted the amplifier and squeezed sideways through the front door. Dan followed with the guitar in its case. That left the small pile of books to Davie, which he packed in the boot beside the amp. Dan laid the guitar case across the back seat as his brother blasted a melody on the harmonica. Davie recognised but couldn't name the tune. 'Love Me Do, kid,' his dad grinned.

'You and the bloody Beatles,' scoffed Dan. 'They were out of date when we were kids.'

'That doesn't stop you listening to Cream and Hendrix.'

'Tch. Catch you later, Davie.' Uncle Dan opened the driver's door. 'Have fun.'

'Yeah. See you.'

'I'll be in touch again soon, my son.' Ian gave Davie high-fives. 'Make sure Alicia gets her card. Ta-ra for now.'

As they drove off, Davie's nonchalant wave disguised a rolling, rocking sea of emotion within. He went back through the gate.

Dan's motor turned the corner to leave the street as Cathy turned onto it. Ian instinctively waved. 'Going in opposite directions. What a mess we've made,' he said, regretfully. 'Did the kid wave back to me?'

'She'll come round the same as Davie,' Dan counselled, accelerating.

'It'll work itself out,' Cathy reiterated to Alicia, pulling up outside the house.

'You've just missed Dad,' Davie said, coming from the living room and following them into the kitchen. 'He left a card for you.'

'For me?'

Davie bit his tongue, cutting off a swipe of sarcasm.

'Take it and open it,' Mum said, encouragingly.

Alicia tentatively took the envelope from Davie's hand and unzipped her shoulder bag.

'Read it, missy!'

'Like now?'

'Yes, like now!'

Alicia slowly tore open the envelope with the enthusiasm of a spendthrift confronting a suspected debt. A big red heart was embossed on the silvery card's cover.

'What does it say?'

'Give me a chance,' Alicia hissed, opening the card. 'To my one and only daughter,' she read out, her eyes wide and her voice shaking, 'love you now and forever. Dad.'

'There you go. That's lovely.'

'What did I tell you? Do you ever believe me?'

'That's enough, Davie.'

'I best start preparing for tonight,' Alicia managed to utter before the lump in her throat took away her voice. She couldn't get out of the kitchen fast enough.

It seemed to Cathy that the house had regained some equilibrium. She reached over the kitchen sink, opening the Venetian blinds and letting in what felt to be rare sunlight, for the clouds were breaking up somewhat, sharing touches and patches of beautiful, crisp azure. Briefly, she fancied that the windows were the house's eyes, winking at her, approvingly, forgivingly. How it's possible to delude yourself! Cathy had previously fancied that the walls were sagging, slowly caving in, when they could actually shelter her for the rest of her time. If her money troubles were resolved. The place had been bought long before the mad boom that led to the insane crash - thank God she didn't have a 'modern' mortgage! Her challenge was getting on top of everything else. Stupid, rotten plastic. Stupid, rotten cost of living. However she tried to do the sums, nothing added up. Each letter that now dropped onto the doormat had only a fifty-fifty chance of being opened. Did the world want her to get out there and sell her body?

That morning she'd known it was vital to discuss money matters with Ian, but had judged her daughter's emotional needs to be more important. And that wasn't all. Her husband's desire to salvage old things from the attic was unnerving. Memories can be so haunting. Damn! What had her husband made of her absence? His opinion of her was already likely so low that he'd want to rush through a divorce. Was he thinking about selling up? Surely he'd want the kids to have a secure home? It made sense to take everything one step at a time, and up on her tiptoes if need be. Ian would have to understand she'd aided Alicia's healing process that morning, yes, that's what she'd say. She'd phone him soon enough and persuade their daughter to say hello. That would make up for it, wouldn't it? And worrying only breeds panic attacks.

Keeping herself busy, Cathy ironed Davie's school uniform and mopped the kitchen floor, letting out tension by improvising hums and la-la's to Alicia's pop music that carried down the stairs. Ian's card seemed to have woven magic - the music wasn't loud enough to thunderously articulate anger, and it wasn't quiet enough to console like a lullaby. For his part, Davie was flopped across the sofa watching a programme about Vikings. Although Cathy might have appreciated some help, she left him to it; at least it was educational. The kids hadn't exactly stopped doing their favourite things since her and Ian's break up, but resentment - and not just the usual teenage cheek - had become part and parcel of everyday communication. And projecting her anxieties onto situations hadn't helped. It had to stop. All was not lost. Ian's loving gesture towards Alicia, and her response, had generated a warm glow with the potential to lead them both out of the darkness. In the future, some sort of peace might touch and bless their relationship. Maybe, in the long term, everything would be for the best.

Cathy allowed Alicia time and space, and then popped her head round her daughter's bedroom door. The card stood beside the Winnie-the-Pooh lamp on Alicia's bedside table. 'Everything fine?' Cathy cheerily asked.

'I can't find my silver necklace with the heart pendant.' Alicia moved away from her desk in the corner, looking round. Miniature Tigger peered over several text books as if to say, 'Thank gawd, the whirlwind's gone.'

'The one your dad got you for your birthday?'

'I really want to wear it.' Alicia started rooting through the tops in her top drawer.

'Is it likely to be in there?'

'It must be somewhere!'

'What about where you last put it?'

'That much is obvious. The problem is I don't know where I last put it.'

'You can't see for looking, babe.'

'Where is it?'

'Round Pudsey's neck.'

'Excellent!' Alicia beamed at the bandaged cuddly toy on her pillow like he'd been given a clean bill of health. 'I remember now,' she said, carefully unfastening her jewellery from round Pudsey. 'I wasn't sure if... Oh, it doesn't matter. And I'm sorry for saying... awful things.'

'Words don't hurt when I know you're fine.' Cathy stepped through the doorway and squeezed Alicia tight. A little love sometimes goes all the way.

After everything that had happened, a period of contemplation and regret was perfectly natural; nevertheless, life doesn't stop moving, teaching new lessons to those who are capable of learning and growing wiser. Hadn't Cathy discovered that she didn't exist solely for the benefit and pleasure of any man? How many years had she dressed up to fit in the man's world? And what had it achieved? They'd considered her to be a doll - a mere plaything - to be used and abused as they saw fit. Well, there was to be no more of that. From now on, she'd do everything for herself and her children. If that meant going without make up or knocking about in raggedy-ass but comfy jeans, then that's what she'd do. And if she wanted to wear the most gorgeous gown, then she'd wear it for herself and be herself. Disguises were out! Already she could hear people talking and judging her, 'Hasn't she let herself go?' or 'Who does she think she is?' And the simple answer and truth? 'I am Cathy'.

The gloom of hard, bitter reality threatened to kill off the tender buds of her hopefulness. Independence? How can you be truly free and owe so much? People like her were trapped in dreary routines so the bit they'd got in debt to have wasn't taken away. Oh, she might have lost herself in dreams of grandeur, but she wasn't so far-gone to be an eternally sleeping beauty. Most recently, while surfing the Web for solutions, she'd read enough to reckon two plus two equals life is one big con. Take it from her, the greedy bastards could keep their dirty, fiddling hands off her family! The great irony was her bloody taxes had bailed out the bigwigs when they'd messed up! Who was going to bail her out? Money? Burn it! It made common folk miserable. You needn't look any further than her own house for proof of that. She and Ian had slaved and borrowed to build a perfect place to raise a family, a lifestyle that drained the loving soul out of them and rewarded them with a stone cold show house.

Had it been wrong or simply human to look again for the love that can exist between a woman and a man? Why was she being punished? Her search had poisoned other intimate relationships and threatened to tear the roof from over her kids' heads. How vindictive did life aim to be? Huh! She'd fight it! One way or another, she'd find a way to keep their home afloat and become free. Yes, free, that's what she was going to be!

For now, the concept of freedom seemed vaguely connected to the pleasurable indulgence of her habits - something nice to eat and a couple of bottles of wine wouldn't break the lousy bank any more than it already was. Wouldn't the rest of it - whatever freedom is - come to her naturally if she rejected some of the straitjacketing roles she was expected to play? No, I'm not just a skivvying mother or eye-candy! In a state of rebellious excitement, Cathy resolved to suggest that Alicia get a taxi home from her gig. Wasn't she always asserting that she's 'a big girl now'? And think how relaxed Cathy might feel when she popped open a bottle and put on a movie! Pure bliss!

Splashing soapy water over the few dishes, Cathy stood them in the drainer, dried her hands and shouted to the kids that she was nipping out to the supermarket. They didn't respond. Before they figured what they wanted, she grabbed her purse, leather shoulder bag and keys, and slunk out of the door. She sped out of the estate towards town, singing along to a track on her favourite rock compilation. 'Born to be wild!'

Have we all taken leave of our senses? She wryly smiled, rising above Saturday's mid-afternoon madness – supermarket aisles so tightly packed with punters slow cooking life's stresses they could be tinned and classified as stew. One flabby man's porcine mush had such a raw flush he looked like he'd been spit-roasted. His sweat dripped like fat from a cheap joint as he sharply angled his trolley - stacked full with value bog roll and disinfectant - round a chest-high pallet of baked beans. He pushed on, squeezing between the loaves and a petite, doddering old lady's trolley with such desperate urgency Cathy was obliquely reminded of the news of refugees fleeing war. And evidence of another conflict could be seen. The price war. Two thick crust pizzas for the price of one, an offer that bombed another stores' most recent plan of attack, courtesy of TV and a gold-winning Olympian's voice-over. Everywhere everything was dictated to by the one and same thing! Why keep getting burned? What purpose did it serve?

In some parts of the world people drank from and washed their rags in filthy rivers - think of those poor buggers she'd done a fun run in aid of a few years back - but just because somebody has it worse doesn't mean you've got it good. And that isn't the point, anyway. Everybody should have it easier with the mind-blowing technology in the world. And what is it used for instead?

As much as anyone else, Cathy knew she could vouch that all the gadgetry and flashy gimmicks on the market don't make you feel any better. They gave you a short-lived kick, then you wanted another, and another, until you resembled an addict funded by money that doesn't really exist. Luckily for her - and unbeknown to Ian - not everything had been purchased on plastic cards or interest free for X months, oh my word, how deep might be the hole she was in? What a bitter blessing that Michael's vanity wouldn't allow him to be seen dead with a less than perfect mistress, or to spend time in a place that too uncomfortably lacked class. She'd replace that disgusting deluxe mattress as soon as she had the cash. Several pairs of silk sheets and the most expensive lingerie had already felt her wrath and her scissors. Wasn't it a shame she couldn't take them to certain dangly things and get away with it? Men's stinking world was so unfair! To hell with them, she'd no longer ingratiate their system! As if it signified some form of revolt, Cathy casually picked her way with her hand basket through the slow-moving trolleys, glancing across shoppers' shoulders at the bright packaging in the freezers and on the shelves, no, none of that, thank you! You never knew what they put in it, what with everything you heard and read. Horsemeat, for Christ's sake! Cathy had attributed Alicia's recent nattering about vegetarianism down to her fusspot inclinations, but, when you thought about it, maybe her girl was right. Is a veggie diet expensive?

Cathy finally went for a handsome, seasoned plaice, broccoli, baby sweetcorn and new potatoes. Any special offers on wine? Reading the label of an Australian red that had a few quid knocked off, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Megan Roberts worked in the wages department at the factory. Although Cathy had never had much to do with her, she'd heard of Miss Robert's reputation - the woman of many faces was on the polite end of the descriptive continuum. Cathy half-expected to see fangs when Megan's glossy, scarlet lips twisted into a smile. Her thick foundation had cracked like barren land in a drought. But wasn't it wrong to judge her on other people's words or her ghoulish appearance? Plenty were probably putting in their tuppence about Mrs Cathy Randall and her failed marriage. 'Hiya,' Cathy smiled.

'Hiya,' Megan replied, giggling flightily. Her blue eyes were mocking, spiteful marbles. 'Returning to work shortly?'

'Everything's on the mend. Thanks for asking.'

'I was going to say, someone comparing the prices of wines isn't ill in my book.'

'But you never studied the books that would make you a qualified doctor.'

Cathy's quick wit dimmed the lustre of malice in Megan's eyes. But only fleetingly:

'I suppose you need a drink after being dumped by mucky Michael. That must have been sickening enough.'

Cathy's hand basket clattered to the floor. Half-dazed like she'd been walloped, she shoved the bottle of wine onto the wrong shelf. It chinked against a bottle of Chilean red.

'Come on, you're never too ill to carry that bit of shopping.' Megan had the knack of purring whilst simultaneously scratching with her claws. 'And it appears your appetite is healthy enough.'

'What the hell has it got to do with you?' A pointless question if ever there was one; some people live to mind everybody else's business:

'We'll be seeing you at work on Monday? Wouldn't want anybody to start telling tales, would we?'

How Cathy later wished she'd minced the interfering cow or stuck an out-of-date label on her rump! Instead, she pushed through the queue to the nearest checkout - 'Hey watch it!' 'Excuse me costs nothing!' - and took a tortuous escape route in and out of the steady procession of shoppers pushing their groceries to the exit. Outdoors, she took a great gulp of cold air tinged with nauseous petrol. Plucking her mobile from her bag, she dialled Michael's number. Had she ever been this humiliated? He deserved to pay with more than a piece of her mind! It rang twice, and then his recorded, smarmy voice gave her the option of leaving a message. She cut the line dead. He wasn't getting away with it that easy. She'd managed to get his home number when, at the height of his romantic pretensions, she'd forced a discussion about emergencies. He'd made her promise to use the number only for matters of life and death. Right now, she could certainly murder him! It rang four times:

'Hello, Victoria speaking.'

His wife. Did Cathy have anything to say to her? How much did Victoria know? Cathy started striding across the car park - the people waiting for lifts with their carrier bags by the supermarket's doors weren't entitled to a free show.

'Hello there. Is something wrong with the line?'

To Cathy's ears, Victoria sounded like a Victorian ma'am. She possessed the type of posh voice that couldn't be used on advertisements for fear of alienating common consumers.

'This isn't particularly amusing. I'm dreadfully busy. Who is it that's fooling around?'

'Your dirt bag husband. Or at least he was. Is he available to speak or is he busy, having lied his way into another poor girl's bed?'

'You.' Silence. Had Victoria hung up? No, and she returned with spiky sang-froid: 'I wondered when the scorned woman's harassment would commence. Hasn't my husband told you that it's over?'

'His word is actually worth something?'

'Never mind that. What do you want?'

A damn good question. Such a phone call couldn't achieve anything, and Victoria knew it:

'If you think for one minute that my husband is about to resume his sordid affair with you, you had better think again.'

'Trust me, lady, I've discovered I'm allergic to insects, especially the big creepy-crawlies.'

'Why make a pest of yourself with such an impertinent call, then?'

'Does he realise the trouble he's caused me?'

'Are you pregnant?'

Cathy visualised Victoria's sudden tense posture, as if two hundred volts had bolted her upright. Her tongue and lips sparked and cracked:

'Are you?'

'Mothering farmyard animals isn't quite my thing.'

'So you were at least sensible enough to use contraception.'

The patronising, hoity-toity bitch! And she got worse:

'I believe you need putting straight. You never had Michael. You were his toy. One that was always going to lose its novelty.'

'He's grown up into a big boy? No longer likes games with girls? You're very lucky not to have your hair pulled even if he is pulling something else.'

'How lame! Like a child who can't get her own way! Don't be so eager to blame Michael for everything. A married woman who messes around with another lady's husband is doing all she can to cause her own grief.'

'I know about that, lady, thank you very much.' Cathy had lost the moral high ground the moment Michael's wife had answered, and the cast-off mistress struggled to reposition herself: 'But does he think he can trample over people and get away with it, just like that?'

'Don't be so stupid, you frivolous woman. How little you understand!'

'Just tell him from me...' What? That stupid Megan Roberts had provoked and rattled her to do this! '...Tell him...' Think of something!

'Hadn't you better tell him yourself? It's time we met up for a chat, don't you think?'

'How cosy.'

'Quite,' Victoria tartly replied. 'Can we arrange to meet somewhere tonight?'

'Are you crazy?'

'I might more appropriately ask you the same question. You've phoned my home and invaded my privacy with your stinking attitude and only after fucking my husband!'

Cathy's knees went wobbly. She leant on the boot of her car for support. In her anger, she'd forgotten that this woman was more than a victim of Michael's transgressions - she herself had intended to ruin Victoria's marriage.

'All things taken into consideration, shouldn't we ensure that these wretched shenanigans are irrevocably laid to rest? You choose the venue. We'll make it.'

Cathy froze, unable to speak.

'Michael suggests The Golden Lion - I presume you know it?'

It was the pub a mile or so down the road from the motel where they'd sometimes met up.

'Is eight o'clock suitable?'

'I...' What's going on? Cathy's head was spinning with dark possibilities. '...Don't know.'

'If you don't know, no one does!'

'Make it eight-thirty.' Why had she said that? 'It's... far more convenient.' She could drive over to the pub after she'd given Alicia a lift to her gig.

'Eight-thirty it is. We'll be there. Goodbye.'

It didn't make sense. Why hadn't Victoria simply insisted that she stay away? Irrevocably laid to rest? What on earth were they hoping to say or do? Would it be safe to meet them? It might be much wiser if, this time, she stood Michael up. Whatever, Cathy couldn't stand about in the car park like a lost sheep. She got into her motor. Clicked on her seat belt. Turned the key in the ignition. Made a decision.

Cathy absently hung her bag on the hook for the house keys. Mercifully, the kids were up in their rooms, out of the way. Reaching for a mug, an impulse to throw them all, one by one, at the wall came over her. Everything was getting too much and... Stop it. Right now. Take slow, deep breaths. A spoonful of coffee. Two sugars. A splash of milk. Stir. She carried her drink through to the room, put it on the coffee table, and fell into the sofa. Oh her rotten, exhausting days! Sinking into the cushions, she massaged her temples, closed her eyes, and imagined somewhere faraway...

Her coffee was stone cold when Alicia's singing brought her round. How long had she been out of it? Hours! Darkness reigned both outside and inside. Her head was thick and some shadowy recollection of an ugly dream ghosted across her consciousness. She got up, half-heartedly stretched, and turned on the light. It was six o'clock. She went through to the kitchen, drowsily skirting round Alicia and the ironing board. While Cathy made a fresh coffee, Alicia said something. 'That's lovely, dear,' Cathy murmured in reply. 'You'll have to start getting ready soon.'

'That's what... Drink your coffee, Mum.'

'I'll have a quick shower before you jump in. I've only one foot in the land of the living.'

No matter how many times he'd been told, Davie wouldn't stop leaving the shower set so that it might spray steaming hot water onto whoever was next naked and forgot to be vigilant. The prank was largely unsuccessful; nevertheless, his sister had twice been reduced to tears in as many years. Butter wouldn't melt, the lad had claimed that there had been an accident on both occasions. 'You don't have the shower boiling hot!' Alicia sobbed vehemently after he'd made his excuses the second time round.

'You could have scalded your sister!' Cathy shouted, scoldingly, dismayed by her daughter's sore-looking flush.

'I thought I'd turned it down,' Davie explained through gritted teeth, as if deeply offended by such unjust insinuations.

'You know how clumsy bloody teenagers are, with their heads in the clouds,' Ian grumpily interjected, defending and admonishing their boy in the same breath.

'It'd better not happen again,' Cathy stormed. 'Or else!' What? She'd take a turn at stepping through the curtain and into the shower, the sudden raw heat shocking her shoulders and chest? She half-screamed, half-yelped, and leapt back towards the dry end of the bath, almost losing her balance on the slippery enamel. 'The little...' One of these days Davie would be in for it! Slowly calming down, Cathy examined herself, diagnosing survival. Leaning against the wall tiles to avoid the burning stream, she reached out and adjusted the control. Ah, that's better! The gentle heat spread inwards, warming her through, as if holding a spiritual torch to the bottom of her heart, challenging whatever treachery lurked in the shadows, for Cathy realised she could no longer afford to be her own worse enemy.

Refreshed, wide awake, Cathy further reasoned that no one was better than her and no one and nothing should be allowed to get to her. That callous, interfering cow, Megan? That stupid phone call? They meant nothing... What? Cathy's dream of echoing voices in dark, claustrophobic, mirrored tunnels surfaced from her subconscious. Hadn't she had the same dream the very day she'd revealed to Michael that her marriage was over? Had it been some kind of premonition? Why had it recurred? Trying to fathom it out in relation to the day's events, Cathy conceded that Megan Roberts, loathe her or hate her, wasn't entirely wrong. She needed to get back on full pay or else wolves would be prowling round her door.

While Alicia showered, Cathy slipped into a pair of faded, figure-hugging jeans with bell bottoms and an old blouse with a pattern of white lilies. If she aimed to show them who's really classy, they'd take it that they were worth impressing and special, and that was strictly no-no. Nonetheless, Cathy studied her full-length mirror for its advice; sometimes it was the sole reliable thing in her life. 'You look great, babe,' it silently promised. But were dark rings developing round her eyes? Did it matter? She'd go to hell rather than hang around Michael and Victoria for too long. Just hear out their rubbish and then hoorah, toodle-pip, good riddance. She wouldn't even remove her coat.

It was incredible that she'd agreed to the meeting; it was designed purely with their interests in mind. And wasn't that the danger? How desperate were they to keep up their pretence of a happy marriage? Cathy pondered over the conundrum again, and again concluded that they wouldn't dare take huge risks in such a public place. She'd be safe as long as she didn't let herself be lured somewhere more secluded.

If they or the suspense weren't going to kill Cathy, she'd do it herself if she wasn't careful - reaching for the black and white photograph of her mother on the end of her bookshelf mounted on the wall, she clumsily sent several hardback novels toppling towards her head. Springing back, her calves caught on the foot of the bed and she fell back onto the mattress. 'What next?' she moaned, feeling stupid, pushing herself into a sitting position. Eyeing the untidy, open books on the carpet, Cathy thought maybe that was her problem \- she'd read and viewed so much trash she expected sensational twists and turns when nothing of the sort ever actually happens. Michael and Victoria would probably bore her to tears with self-pitying self-righteousness, not for one moment considering she'd also endured heartache. Still, you never could tell. She'd better be on her guard. In its grubby small-mindedness, reality seldom guaranteed happy endings.

Let the little shower-meddler complain about sliced bread! Cathy scanned the fridge and pulled out a packet of processed ham. A smudge of Branston? When Davie's sandwich was cut into triangles, she put a bag of salt and vinegar crisps and a Mars bar on the plate. She hated the kids eating in their rooms, but just this once she'd relax her rule - too much was going on to worry about a few crumbs.

'Room service,' Cathy sweetly called before pushing against Davie's bedroom door with her shoulder. The curtains were drawn tight; her son's television flickered and flashed, dimly illuminating the room, on and off. It reminded Cathy of a strobe and the singles' disco that evening fictional Mr Cutterford had done Michael's dirty work. What about the 'arrangement' and the money she'd accepted that night? She hadn't signed anything and it had been spent while she'd got over things on the sick - her former lover wasn't getting it back! Tough luck, Mikey boy. With a bit of luck, he'd be fuming that she'd gone back on her word. A taste of his own bitter medicine would cure him of any ideas that he had any control over her.

Cathy considered her son sprawled across his bed, entranced by the game on the screen. In the game of life would he turn out to be that type of hollow man? She observed his gung-ho onscreen character fire laser beams as he tore through a gloomy warehouse full of sealed boxes with 'CONFIDENTIAL' stamped on them in red. The strobe light effect was caused by the explosions when each shot hit or missed its target. A lesson in creating havoc? Sheer ruthlessness? Murder? 'What's the object of that game, Davie?' she asked, crouching to put the plate of food on the carpet by the bed.

'Saving humanity from alien invaders.'

Cathy reached for the door handle; did anything in the world make sense?

'You've forgot a drink.'

'Beam one up or come and get one yourself.'

Driving across town to the hotel hosting the wedding reception, Alicia pumped up the volume to drown out Mum's ominous silence. What had she got her knickers in a twist about? She'd better not start accusing her of something she hadn't done! Mum would usually be spinning encouragement like she had a religion that preached the sky should never be the limit as far as self-belief goes - you can be your own goddess up there among the twinkling stars! So what if the clouds concealed them tonight?

'I'm actually getting quite excited. Do you think they'll like me?' Alicia asked, fishing for an explanation and compliments. She glanced at Mum out of the corner of her eye.

Cathy turned the music off. 'They won't just like you - they'll adore you, babe. As long as you know that if you don't want to sing, you can always let them dance to some other tune. And that goes for everything in life, always remember that.'

'This is a real audience,' Alicia boasted, 'not mucky old men and their sour, grotty wives. Everybody is turning up to honour a young couple on the best day of their lives. It doesn't get any more romantic.'

'I'm sure you'll do everybody proud.'

Was that it? Wasn't it going to be the greatest show they'd ever seen performed by the prettiest girl? Something was up, but at least the blame seemed to belong elsewhere. Ha! The thought that Davie was heading for the dog-house instantly fashioned a smirk on Alicia's lips.

Cathy indicated, slowed, and turned off the main road, passing a hoarding advertising succulent-looking Sunday roasts at under eight quid per head. The black, starless sky merged with the forms of stark, towering trees, creating an eerie sensation of blindness until Cathy flicked the headlights on full beam. For a moment or two, they crawled through a tunnel of sturdy tree trunks and bushy evergreens, emerging onto a gravelly courtyard illumined by dainty, Victorian-style lamps. Alicia pressed the button to lower her window as if the glass somehow spoiled her view. While cold air invaded the car, the muffled beat of pop music drifted out of the hotel. Cathy swung round and braked alongside the five or so steps that climbed up to reception's double doors, which were beneath a mock-classical entablature supported by a pair of ionic columns. Ivy crept up and over the red brick walls, thickening under the gutters as if it was regrouping, figuring where to go next.

'I wish you could stay,' Alicia said, warily eyeing two young men in suits who were smoking cigarettes at the top of the steps and peering down into the car. 'It's going to be a fantastic night.'

'They won't want strangers sitting in on their wedding celebrations, babe. You'll be fine.' In all the times Michael had escorted Cathy to the hotel, she'd seen a spot of bother just the once, and it had been efficiently dealt with.

Alicia wasn't persuaded. Shouldn't her mum want to cheer her on? Dropping her off like this amounted to saying her routine had grown tedious.

Noting Alicia's sullen expression, Cathy leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. 'They'll want at least five encores. I heard you singing while you were ironing - your voice is in peak condition.'

'Do you mean that?' Alicia forgot the young men.

'You'll have them dancing on the tables. Now go and enjoy it. Give me a ring if you've any problems with your taxi later.'

That was more like it, though there wasn't enough of it - praise that sounded like she meant it. Alicia embraced and held on to her mum.

'You'd better go sock it to 'em, babe.'

'It'll be my greatest performance yet,' Alicia vowed, unhooking herself from her parent. She inspected her reflection in the wing mirror before getting out. Opening a rear door, she carefully lifted her stage clothes and her bag from the seat. Her outfit was on hangers and protected by bin liners, and it was fortunate that she was too busy reliving the moment her mum had said she looked stunning in her glittery dress to hear one of the young men bitch: 'Least she knows she's tarty rubbish.'

From the top of the steps, ignoring the young men's brooding lust, Alicia blew a kiss and vanished through the doors. And now, Cathy thought, it's time to face my very own audience. One she'd love to knock dead.

The finest drizzle fell onto Cathy's windscreen, was wiped away, fell again, was wiped away, fell again, as she sped back across town. Under hazy orange lamp-light the wet roads glistened. Only once did she slow to a standstill; to allow pedestrians over a pelican crossing near hostile-looking high-rise flats. Not to return until Monday morning, the rush hour traffic had long since petered into a steady trickle, and Cathy arrived at her destination a quarter of an hour early. She'd last visited the pub years ago when, as a married couple, she and Ian had been invited to the birthday bash of one of his gobby, halfwit workmates. Not up to sitting alone with strangers' beer-goggles poring over her, she decided to wait in the car. And there was more to it, of course. The approaching moment of truth or of lies would test anyone's nerve, and it felt like Gothic ravens rather than butterflies were flapping their wings in her belly. Almost as bad as the time she'd discovered a gristly lump in her left breast. Miraculously, it had turned out to be benign, but there was no hope of anything mild about tonight's encounter. What was the point?

Cathy squinted, trying to see beyond the glare of a motor's headlights as it entered the car park. It was revealed to be a dark coloured, classic BMW as it manoeuvred round, and she believed she caught sight of Michael in the passenger seat. She wiped her sweaty palms on her foamy steering wheel, and then grasped it as if the action might help her get a grip on her fear. Instead, the years abruptly stripped away and Cathy vividly remembered, as a little girl, crying on a pavement. She'd wandered out of a baker's shop and been overwhelmed by the terrible uncertainty of becoming lost. Having paid for a loaf and a gingerbread man, her mother found her as soon as she stepped onto the street, mopping up Cathy's tears with a handkerchief that smelled of lavender... But that was then: who could she depend on now? Her intense shakiness prevented her from starting up her motor and roaring away.

The BMW pulled over in the dark, far corner of the car park. The silhouettes of two people getting out - one on either side of the vehicle - were barely perceptible. They moved towards the pub. Cathy identified Michael for definite when they stepped under the buzzing glow of the lamppost near the entrance. He wore a familiar grey suit. Under the pub sign that featured a golden king of the beasts resplendent with a crown, the couple paused to speak. Cathy had found courage by muttering a prayer to her mother, wherever her soul rested, and, as Michael glanced at his wristwatch, she felt nothing but a curious revulsion. Like watching a sizeable spider crawl up a wall from a safe seat on the other side of a room. She couldn't have loved him, could she? The pair went into the pub before Cathy took a good look at Victoria.

If Cathy had never loved him, had he really betrayed her? And did that mean Victoria was the one and only injured party? No good could come out of such a meeting, Cathy said to herself: who'd heard of such a thing? Why willingly walk into a fight? Especially when you're outnumbered. And then she thought again. Public warring wasn't Michael's style. All urbane charm to your face, he worked behind the scenes, patiently waiting for a perfect moment to leave his knife in your back. Michael cared too deeply about the sophisticated, affable image he'd cultivated to let things get messy in a public house. And didn't the Cutterford incident prove he was far too much of a dirty fighter for common thuggery? One thing was beyond question - if Cathy was going to return to work, she'd have to deal with him at some point. Now she'd made the phone call, it would be far better to meet first on neutral territory. Force of habit, she touched up her hair in the rear view mirror, got out, locked up, and started walking.

With half-sunk, frothy pots on the bar, four likely lads noisily debated the value of players on the transfer market. Shaking his head disbelievingly, Boss-eyes climbed down from his stool, retreating towards the toilets and waving down the refrain of banter that pursued him. The horsefaced, foulmouthed strawberry blonde in a green adidas tracksuit top grinned impudently when Cathy caught his eye. She looked away and around: where were they? By the disused fireplace, a man with nicotine-stained fingers and thin grey hair slicked back over his crusty, pink scalp somehow concentrated on his newspaper; a pint of Guinness was also on his table. That was it. Her meeting would take place in the lounge. She ordered a red wine. The landlord looked big and handy enough to eject wrongdoers, and she gave him her sweetest smile as she paid. He flirtatiously winked. Though there was no particular reason it should be, she made sure her long black coat wasn't creased. In her matching flat shoes, she stepped toward the lounge door, holding up her head.

Sat side by side, facing the doorway and Cathy, they had a table in the far corner. There was one other couple, at a table in the corner to Cathy's left: they were youngish, in their own starry-eyed world. Mr and Mrs Michael's eyes chilled Cathy's heart. 'You dared to show!' his foul, accusing stare exclaimed. For a second, his anger seemed to fill the room like a spectral explosion. Victoria critically measured up her former rival, an experience as creepy as being mentally undressed by some decrepit perv. Cathy sipped her wine to lubricate her dry mouth, and strode across the room. She took a seat opposite them as if she'd turned up for an interview she didn't have a cat in hell's chance of passing and, like an alley cat, couldn't care less. Could they see through her bravado? Her pulse pounded like her life was on the line.

'This unpleasant business needn't take long. What was the meaning of your phone call to my house?'

'Pleased to meet you, too, Victoria. I've heard so much about you. Isn't it a coincidence that your perfume is my favourite? Did Michael buy you it?'

Cathy's gaze clashed with Victoria's bright, blue-eyed glare. She picked up her glass and sipped her red wine and Victoria did the same with her white. A tempest of anger, sorrow, envy, relief, disgust, disturbed Cathy. She was ready to fight even if slugging it out had been the last thing on her mind when she'd entered the Golden Lion. She glanced at Michael; he only had hard eyes for her now.

Cathy had worried that she'd be unable to control the emotion in her voice, yet she sounded cold and sharp: 'I'm sorry that you expect a jolly picnic in the park after your husband exploited my feelings, but...'

'I've already heard enough of this foolish woman's talk.'

'I'm sure you have, Michael. By the way, how's your great friend Mr Cutterford?'

'I don't know who you're talking about,' he said blankly, leaning back in his chair. 'I've never met a man by that name. Victoria, do we have to tolerate this nonsense? Haven't I promised?'

'You've previously derived pleasure from her company - I'm sure you can stick it one last time.'

Victoria spoke so tensely to her husband that Cathy caught a clear glimpse of how he had made the woman suffer. Her knuckles were white around her wine glass. Mrs Randall inched her seat back, gaining a little more room; the illusion of a comfort zone.

Michael muttered and studied his watch. What, Cathy asked herself, had she ever seen in such a despicable swine?

She supposed Victoria was around the same age as her excuse for a husband - about a decade older than Cathy - and it had to be said she'd worn well. Despite deep crow's feet and the crease of a frown, Victoria's beauty shone radiantly, and - from Cathy's side of the table - she appeared to have upheld an elegant, slender figure. Few women would get away with the silky, frilly, deep purple blouse that Victoria wore with assured grace. In their youth, she'd be the most precious brunette on Michael's horizons. Pity he couldn't resist the legendary fun that blondes offer and enjoy.

'I'm fully aware of the details of my husband's fling. With that in mind, we'll get straight to the point.'

'I'm positively thrilled.'

'It'll go over the bovine woman's head, Victoria.'

'I'm an educated woman,' Victoria started regardless. 'I fully understand the pressures on women in society. No doubt you understood that 'getting in' with a powerful man would improve your social status and fortunes. I'm not as offended by you as you might expect. As a feminist, I know that many women have to bend the rules of an uncaring, unforgiving world to get anywhere...'

'Darling...'

'Michael, not now!' Victoria shot him the sternest glance. 'As for my husband's behaviour, I'm certainly not shocked. I don't know if you're aware, I'm a doctor of literature...'

'Bully for you.'

'...Although I specialise in feminist texts, I always admired that rebellious rogue Byron. Michael's apparent similarity to the poet was one of the things that attracted a bright young student to him. I've come to understand that there are many ways in which the men differ, but they're of no consequence to you.'

Though Victoria wasn't shocked by her husband, Cathy was stunned by his wife. How was it possible to discuss your husband's affair with his mistress so... so... mechanically? Perhaps Michael hadn't entirely lied. Maybe everything was purely academic to Victoria, as if she had no emotional investment in anything. No, that wasn't right. Think of her tone when she spoke to him, and then those fiery eyes she treated him to. Marriage to Michael, once you really got to know him, would be enough to turn Venus into a shrew or a mannequin. Or drive a good woman insane. Cathy realised how lucky her escape had been.

'Now, without further ado, you phoned for a reason. What do you want?'

'I'm not sure now I've discovered where the bard here got his lines of romantic poetry. Ha! A man of culture? Do you get by reading the parts Victoria's underscored? Michael, you're such a fraud.'

'You came here to exchange insults? You're more easily satisfied than I imagined. Michael's standards are slipping.'

'You've spent too much time with your head in books, lady, if you think he's at the top of the pile, looking down.'

'How very insightful,' Victoria said, ironically. She savoured the taste of her wine. 'One wonders how and why a sharp, streetwise woman would fall over herself to get to a man she considers so unworthy. Ah yes, we've already discussed social climbing. Sorry to have smashed in the rungs above you.'

Cathy's eyes stung as she fought back tears.

'I've had enough, Victoria.' Michael knocked back his brandy and emphatically put his glass down, not quite a slam, but it meant the same thing. 'Let's just leave her amongst the dregs.'

'Finding it unbearable? Ha! Take the car keys. I won't be long.'

'Is it wise to be alone with her?'

'You certainly thought so,' Cathy snarled, unable to stomach his snobbish sanctimony. She felt like throwing her wine over him. Instead, she angrily pointed out: 'You're the guilty one, remember?'

'I'm sure,' Victoria said, affording a cynical smile at her husband's expense while stabbing at Cathy, 'her bark is worse than her bite.'

With some difficulty Cathy let the insult pass; who was the bitch to call her a dog?

Victoria dropped her car keys on the table and Michael moodily scooped them up. She watched her husband leave the room before she went on. Her tone had changed; by no means softer, it was less combative. 'I suppose you feel very aggrieved. You've lost your marriage, your lover - everything you might have hoped for. Do you see that you were out of your depth and always going to lose? Perhaps there are some lessons in this that you need to learn.'

'I'm not one of your students, doc.'

'Just as well. You'd be failing. Your prettiness is only a weapon as long as it has some novelty, and it isn't any weapon at all when you're dealing with most other women. Michael wanted to ditch you long before he did.'

'That's his story?'

'One that I believe. And I'm expert at analysing words, written or spoken. He'd had his fun; why would he want to stick around you? You've no education and no class. Just another pretty woman, and there are thousands of you around.'

If Cathy had been able to get over the woman's conceit and temerity, she might have slapped her.

'All the same I can sympathise - woman to woman: what did society ever want you to be? You're the doll of its creation. You might be a cheat, but I suppose you've no idea how the world has cheated you.'

Was the woman for real? Rather than slap her, Cathy wanted to reach out to see if she could touch flesh.

'I don't want an explanation or an apology. I simply want you to understand that it is over. From now on, we behave like it never happened. Michael is arranging for you to be transferred when you return to work - I understand you've been ill. You'll be moved to a department where he will least cross your path. Now,' she reached in her designer handbag and produced a wad of twenty pound notes, 'this is the first and final offer. Three thousand pounds is yours to do with as you please if you can guarantee that the episode is erased from our lives.'

Cathy eyed the money on the table as if she was being offered poison. Despite her airs and graces and her education, Victoria was relying on hard cash's brute power. She was no better than Cathy, no matter what she might think.

'Are you going to take it? It's most advisable. There will be no other offers and there's no way back for you as far as Michael is concerned.'

As if, thought Cathy, I want a way back. She continued to stare at the money. It seemed very doubtful that any fine feelings or high principles - romance - was left in the world outside of books and films.

'I must have your word before you take it.'

It was a demand, and one with a despairing edge. Victoria had expected Cathy to snatch at the cash.

'Please agree and take it.'

'There's more to this than you're letting on, and we have no understanding until I know everything. Michael's already proven to be lower than a snake's belly.'

'Our son...' Victoria stopped herself. She was under pressure.

'Your son?' Another new one.

'Yes, our son,' Victoria confirmed, her voice unsteady, 'is soon to be married.' She gathered herself. 'I do not want any upset leading up to the big day. He means the world to me.'

Victoria's eyes had a glassy sheen and Cathy could see the truth in them. Mummy wanted to stand with daddy on the big happy family wedding shots. So much for the gender warrior in the man's world. Yet, woman to woman, Cathy fully understood. When they were of age, would she want Alicia or Davie's special days to be threatened? She discreetly put the money in her handbag. 'You have my word,' she said, softly.

'Thank you.'

Cathy looked at the cream wall as Victoria got up, hurrying to get away.

She took her time over her glass of wine; they'd have travelled miles when she stepped into the car park. She had no desire to look either of them in the face again. What a squalid business from start to finish. It certainly didn't make her feel good to accept dirty money, but why should she lose out every which way? Victoria's 'gift' would keep some of her creditors happy for a while. It was about time she started totalling things up, rather than screwing correspondence up. My, my, how the other half live! What was it like to be able to pay off everybody? What sort of marriage did they have when money had an easy answer for everything? A comfortable one, probably, if that's possible without trust. That class were probably used to secrecy, weren't they? Oh, hark at you, Cathy Randall! What about the secrets she'd kept from Ian? At least she and Ian could change for the better. Victoria clearly didn't know about the payment Michael had made through 'Cutterford'. The thought of which brought a smile to Cathy's face - Michael had doubtlessly had his moment about her breaking the terms of that 'contract'.

Looking over her shoulder, Cathy wondered when the youngish couple had left. The best of luck to them. They'd need it. She put down her empty glass, collected herself, and got up. Perhaps she'd catch Alicia's show, after all. Her girl was one of the few things she'd really got.
Chapter Eleven

'Sherlock! Leave it be! Come here, boy!' Out in a frost-bitten farmer's field, a Jack Russell pup lifted his snout from the frozen carcass of a crow; his head to one side, his raised tail twitching, Sherlock clearly had reservations about surrendering such treasure. A piercing whistle from his master's chapped lips prompted him to snatch the feathery remains in his jaws and dart off to his right. From there to where? With nowhere to hide on a crop-less, open field, the little dog raced round in ever-decreasing circles until, finally, panting, he dropped the corpse at his paws and rolled over. His master whistled again; this time the pup leapt up, gleefully yapped, and bounded over the cold, hard earth to the narrow lane that ran like a vein between the sloping, empty fields. 'Heel, boy,' said Ian Randall, starting to move once more in his battered walking boots, old jeans, brown duffel and black woollen hat.

The cold snap had descended on Sunday morning and Dan's place had felt colder than a misanthropic snowman's heart. No need to drag a blade across your skin in this, Ian had thought. Now, Friday, his stubbly growth was a short brown beard, flecked with grey around the corners of his mouth and on his chin. In the wool hat, the change in his appearance was marked - Dick Wakefield, one of his old man's lifelong mates, would have strolled past him without so much as a nod if not for Ian's, 'Oi! How you keeping?'

'Not too bad, cocker.' Old Dick's pilling, chequered, blue and red wool hat was pulled down to his bushy grey brow; his runny blue eyes peered into Ian's face slowly making the connection. Impetuously tapping a folded newspaper into the palm of a black thermal glove, he declared, 'It's not fit to let a dog out.'

'They need their exercise whatever the weather,' Ian replied, glancing at Sherlock.

'Yes, well, I'm no hound and I'm on my way home sweet home, as bloody cold as it is there. Ta-ra.'

The sight of Dick shambling along the frosty pavement movingly reminded Ian that time catches up with all. Bloody hell, Dick's resilience was once renowned - after spending his Sundays knocking back umpteen bottles of potent, imported lager in the local club and pub, he'd be up, rain or shine, on Monday mornings to labour away on building sites.

Like a ghostly vapour Ian's breath ascended through the biting, silent air as he briskly ambled on down the lane. He clapped and rubbed his hands together and Sherlock, thinking some kind of game was afoot, giddily ran rings around Ian's feet, first one way, then the other. The lonely scramble back up the boozy, slippery slope of redundancy and failed marriage had persuaded Ian that a dog's faithful companionship was for him. Stuck in Dan's place, it had been extremely tough getting used to not seeing anyone from one day to the next, and Sherlock's doleful, beseeching eyes had instantly won him over when he'd visited the dog refuge. Even if someone else had abandoned Sherlock with just a lead, a collar and a name-tag at the end of a refuge worker's drive, a small, hardy terrier wouldn't be a problem for him. Or would it? The knowledge that the refuge people believed hard times had walloped half-starved Sherlock's original owners had Ian counting up to his last penny. A decent home was... Aww! Look at the little fella! It'd be tight, but how could he be left behind again? Sherlock sealed the deal by licking Ian's fingers and widdling on his training shoe.

The icy atmosphere had numbed Ian's fingers, and it was a tedious struggle to roll a cigarette - the slimline filter wouldn't go in place, effing thing! Only after much fiddling did he succeed. Lighting up with his Zippo, Ian gazed down the lane and across the terraced houses that formed one horizon and the perimeter of a sprawling estate that stored painful memories of a teenage crush and her big brother. Four stitches for his kisser rather than the snog of his dreams, Ian seemed to taste the blood on his tongue again. It now struck him that, if he had been treading the same path at this time of year in his salad days, almost every chimney would be puffing smoke towards the ashy clouds, as if socially indulging his habit. Big if. King Coal had been dethroned long ago. We can go over the same ground, Ian told himself, but never quite tread the same paths as those we youthfully strode along, always, somehow, something has changed and your route leads elsewhere. Unless it had always been destined nowhere. Twenty or so yards further along, Ian dropped the tab end and, with his heel, crushed it into a frozen puddle, crunching the ice into an anarchic web of white. The puddle had collected in the muddy imprint of a field bike's skidding tyre and he recalled how his gang used to race up and down the lanes on wrecks of motorbikes. Perhaps we went exactly the same way as the previous generation... No, that couldn't be right - wasn't his parents' marriage intact? All the same, and despite technology's promise of progress, his kids stared into a future as uncertain as the abyss he'd faced at the same age, as big industry was pitilessly cut down and sent to its grave. Things had never got any securer. Like many others, he'd dumbly fallen for the mirage of an economic miracle whilst simultaneously knowing it was a sham. Why else had fear overcome him as he'd grown older? Hadn't it turned him into some kind of moronically dutiful stick-in-the-mud, more in tune with shift patterns than his family? What a waste of energy the worry had been, for it was blindingly obvious that one day things would come to the worse if the world didn't somehow find the courage to change.

After much soul-searching, Ian had comprehended life could regain some meaning by tending to and mending the things he'd sometimes wilfully neglected. That meant it was time to clear some of the air that his frightened, big mouth had polluted.

At the end of the lane, a cinder track skirted the mix 'n' match high panel fencing of the houses on the edge of the estate's back gardens. The track led to a snicket that came out onto the street. As he pulled Sherlock's leash from a duffel pocket, the cold links of the chain nipped Ian's frozen flesh like blunt teeth. Untroubled by the weather, Sherlock trailed behind, sniffing at the bottom of a fence panel and then following a scent across the cinder track to the hedgerow. Its twigs were fluffy white with frost. Before Ian knew it that supposedly fantastical season Christmas would be on him. Groan. His redundancy money wasn't going any further and, after paying into the system all of his working life, JSA was tantamount to daylight robbery. To rub salt into the sores, the officious monkeys who performed stand and deliver on behalf of the government were already getting funny, as if he'd closed the plant down, or messed everything up so full-time employment was as rare as sightings of Santa's helpers. Calling the government every name under the feeble, hazy winter sun wouldn't help, however, although driving a giant bulldozer over a full parliament might get results. The bastards! How would the kids react when they found he had nothing to give in December? Using a credit card that he already couldn't clear was unthinkable!

Storming into a bank with a shotgun had an understandable attraction, what with the corruption bankers were mired in. More than once, before dismissing the idea as a bored mind's half-baked fantasy, Ian had tentatively considered getting his hands on the weapon Dan kept locked away. Luckily, Dan - a true brother - was letting him live at his place board-free. And that act of kindness had allowed Sherlock to be saved. 'Here boy!' Wagging his tail, the pup padded over to Ian, who knelt to clip the leash onto his diminutive friend's studded, red leather collar.

The street was as cold, still and silent as the fields, though Sherlock's keen, inquisitive nose detected a sign of life at the foot of a lamppost. He cocked his leg over it, and then, after a gentle tug of the leash, the pair crossed over the road. Twenty yards up the street, a short way down the second left, outside number sixty-six, a nineteen-seventies electric blue Volkswagen camper van was parked tight against the kerb. The scarlet CND logos sprayed on the doors touched Ian with hope. There was every chance of a violent blast unless the principle of peace was extended to all, including him. Ian had been hopelessly drunk the last time he'd seen Johnny Jacks \- he had no idea as to whether his former union rep was irreconcilably pissed off.

Ian's uncertainty nagged at him. Johnny's front garden had been completely paved over and Ian noted that, God help us, the area was the size of a small boxing ring. Defend yourself at all times, but don't look for a fight; yes, cagey does it. He opened the double wrought-iron gates, strode purposefully over the concrete slabs - barely aware of Sherlock's pull towards the birdbath by the hedge - and rang the doorbell. Sherlock yapped at the chime. 'Just a minute,' someone - presumably Johnny - called. Seconds later, the door opened. Johnny's clear-blue eyes glinted rancorously, briefly reminding Ian of the climactic shootout in his favourite Spaghetti Western. Wiry, a tad taller than Ian, hair shaved to the wood, Johnny adopted a mocking genteel tone: 'Now then, old chap, to what do I owe this...?' He stopped; his last unexpected visitor, nearly a year ago, had brought crushing news. 'Has something happened to one of the guys?'

'Nothing that bad, Johnny, thankfully. I've been keeping out of the club. You'd know more about something like that than I would, especially now my mobile's packed in.' It had never been the same since the day he'd lost his job and angrily flung it, bounce on the sofa, crash on the floor. 'I need a word.'

Johnny's arms crossed over his chest. 'I've promised my old man I'd look at his brakes.'

Ian looked Johnny up and down: he was dressed for it in a bitty navy sweater and camouflage trousers stained by oil and red paint. Should it come to a scrap, his mucky desert boots wouldn't deliver much of a kick.

'Dad's knocking on too much to be in the garage in winter - I'm about to set off, and I can't stand about with the door wide open.'

'I won't hold you up for long.'

'I know that.'

'Hear me out. I...' Ian had prepared a speech, but now he needed them, the words had deserted him. 'The thing is... All that business... I've been thinking and, you know, well...'

'Come in,' Johnny said, unenthusiastically, cringing inside at Ian's ineptitude. 'And the dog - he's welcome.'

'At least one of us, eh?'

'Kick your boots off.'

Ian had been wiping them on the doormat. Bending over - wincing at the stab of pain in his back - he undid his laces, pulled off his boots and put them side-by-side on the doorstep. Surely no one would steal such a shabby pair? Only a joker of unparalleled senselessness would be out and messing about on a day like this. Christ, didn't his toes ache like they'd turned into brittle icicles! Sherlock's furry body heat was heaven to Ian's benumbed touch as he picked up the pup and carried him over the threshold, closing the door behind them. The most comforting heating gave Ian heart as he followed Johnny across the tiny, lemon-painted hall and into the kitchen. 'The missus is at work and the kids are at school - we won't be interrupted.' Johnny flicked the switch on the electric kettle. 'Coffee?'

'White, no sugar.'

'Sweet enough?' Johnny sneered.

'Cheap enough. Or something.' Ian glanced around. No real shock in Johnny's home, the look of must buy everything consumer madness that had set the tone at his and Cathy's place was conspicuously absent. Spotlessly clean and tidy, it reminded Ian of a more contemporary version of his old folks' kitchen - the taps ran water, the oven cooked grub, and the washer cleaned stuff - functional, but with homely bits and bobs. A human touch. Like the collection of fridge magnets shaped like camper vans that highlighted the places Johnny's family had visited up and down the country, over the channel and into the continent. Beneath the magnets, a scrawled note was blu-tacked to the fridge door - a reminder to get a carton of milk and a loaf. Ian pulled a seat from under the kitchen table, turned it towards Johnny, and sat with Sherlock on his lap. 'How is everybody?'

'They'll be better when the man of the house finds work.'

'How old are your lads again?'

'Kelly's thirteen. My lad Blake is eleven.'

'Ah, yes. Looking forward to a summer of travel?' Ian nodded in the direction of the fridge magnets. 'You'll be able to get away somewhere?'

'The big end's gone and the body's plagued with rust. Besides, it's only just turned winter and you haven't come to talk days out.' The slightest encouragement was usually enough to get Johnny telling the tale of how he'd paid a few hundred quid for a beat up camper van and transformed it into a machine capable of touring Europe. 'And I ask myself, why are you here?' He handed over a cup of black coffee. 'No need to pull faces - I haven't poisoned it.'

'Much obliged.'

'And so?' With his back against the kitchen sink, Johnny plucked a cigarette he'd rolled earlier from a small leather pouch, lit it, exhaled, and raised his brow. 'You were going to say?'

'Bit of a pleasure that, eh? Smoking in the house. Probably the best thing to have come out of my move to Dan's.'

'I usually go outside,' Johnny replied, taking another drag.

'Right.' Ian looked down, stroking Sherlock from his skull to his tail.

'There's nothing stopping you from lighting up.'

'Not long put one out.' Sherlock wriggled, trying to get down to explore. 'Look at the bugger...'

'Nice dog and all that, but I told you I've an appointment.'

'It's difficult to know where to begin.' Ian gazed into Sherlock's eyes, receiving a sloppy lick on his cheek. 'Give over, you foul-breathed charmer,' he laughed nervously. You walked all this way, dummy, get it over with! Ian looked up. 'I've had plenty of time to think things through since we've been laid off,' he announced, firmly. 'I owe you an apology.'

Johnny blew smoke into the air. Waited.

'All the stuff you were doing in the union, you were right. I was a fool withdrawing my membership and saying anything to throw a spanner in the works of the men's opposition. All I could think about was this week's wages and next weeks' bills. We should have opposed the management way back, when you first brought it up. By the time we were prepared to think about doing something, it was already too late.'

'Tell me something I don't know,' Johnny answered, cool and sarcastic, after a long, thoughtful pause. Then, sharply: 'Would you have broken a strike?'

'I planned to jump back into the union if it came to industrial action.'

'So you were playing everybody?' Johnny stubbed out his rising anger by grinding his roll-up in an ashtray from Barcelona. 'Really doing your bit for the community.'

'I was trying to cover my family's backs.'

'And they shot us from the front.' Johnny started rolling another cigarette as if he had to keep his hands occupied for danger of throttling someone. When it was clear Ian had nothing else to say, he sourly conceded, 'It'd be disingenuous to claim your big gob swayed things one way or the other. And I suppose we'll never know what you'd have done if the real test came. Not many can admit they're wrong over something like this. The civilised thing to do is give you the benefit of the doubt.'

'That's appreciated.'

'Even us dinosaurs with a taste for backhanders rather than extinction have our good side, don't cha know?'

'Those names...'

'Slurs!'

'I made those personal slurs to my complete shame.'

'You said it. And you'd better not repeat them ever again.'

'Understood.'

'All this foreign investment or selling off everything to masters overseas means you can't even negotiate,' Johnny blasted, suddenly animated, pacing from the sink to the washing machine in the corner and back again, as if he was the one with everything to explain. 'You get puppets who sit tight behind the excuse that they haven't the authority to do a thing. Somebody hundreds or even thousands of miles away says something, and it's final. Guys who put twenty, thirty, forty years of their lives into a company, dumped, without a second thought. It's criminal. We all become members of the scroungers club, or whatever it is the papers call us like we haven't ever paid tax or National Insurance.'

'I've been thinking I should do something.'

'Like what?' Johnny asked, not bothering to conceal his derision.

'I was something like a hippy once,' Ian replied, overlooking the fact that he'd thought about doing 'something' in the same way he'd fantasised about grabbing Dan's gun and holding up a bank. 'I can play The Times They Are A-Changing on guitar.'

'You can?' Johnny's eyes widened with incredulity.

'You bet.' Ian had been so thrilled with his musical progress over the last week that he'd unscrewed the oversized, oblong mirror from the bathroom wall, carried it down the stairs - nearly tripping over Sherlock at the halfway point - and propped it against one of the living room's walls. Strumming away at his Telecaster with Dan's half-assembled Harley reflected behind him, he'd looked every bit the rock god who'd been deprived of his time. Sort of. What's more, running through a few rebel songs convinced Ian that he'd achieved something, which, in one way, he had. Though when the sound of his chords died away, the only actual difference was that his imagination roamed ever wilder. 'I can tear it up with the best of them,' he bragged.

Johnny laughed, 'You must be the minstrel of Armageddon.'

'Seriously, I've been thinking things over. I kidded myself that paying my taxes and never stepping out of line made me one of the good guys...'

'It doesn't altogether make you one of the bad guys. Those tax-evading companies aren't heroes, you know.'

'You're one of the dumb-asses when you blame everybody who's weaker or who has a different colour skin, as if you're a long-suffering martyr to a cause you don't even understand. That loads of people are shouting out patriotic codswallop shows the depth of their confusion.'

'Patriotism is the last refuge of the blind as well as the scoundrel, huh?'

'Mug, in my case. Slavishly following everything has just taken me so many steps the wrong side of square one. I've got that bit older and I've even fewer chances. Maybe every one has gone. Shit, I might as well face it - I've lost everything except my kids, and it was a close call with Alicia.'

'You've lost everything?'

'We're in a mess. Until I speak to Cathy I don't know how deep it is exactly. Communication broke down as it does after a split. Maybe we could sell the house, but, there again, the kids need a stable home and there are exorbitant rents and new mortgages to consider if we take that route. In a nutshell, we bought into too much crap whenever a bank threw a bit of plastic at us. Fools to ourselves. Look at your place - you haven't gone crazy and it feels like a home.'

'It costs, believe you me. And that's much to the point. People were encouraged to get into debt by successive governments and their international paymasters, not that me and Marie fell for it. This house is of the dwindling stock of social housing. That said, my wage combined with Marie's wage never went anywhere. It's easy to see how - bang! - people got sucker punched. And, obviously, people in debt feel the pressure and are less inclined to challenge the ways of their world. The global economy is practically a dictatorship of multinationals, bankers and the so-called free market...'

'Dictatorship?'

'That's what I said.'

'They don't shoot people, Johnny.'

'You don't need to put a gun to people's heads if you're sly enough. The moneymen have conspired to nationalise their costs and debts while privatising profits. As if that isn't good enough for them, their bonanzas disappear into offshore accounts before hardly any tax is paid. Whole societies are being bled dry as the rich get ever richer and ever more powerful. Everything - and I mean everything - is going to be in the hands of the same tiny elite, the whole world over. And the rest of us? We're to be serfs with our digitalised yoke on a crazy APR.'

'Johnny, all due respect, that credit crunch calamity wasn't planned.'

'It wasn't. Not exactly. They thought their ludicrous neoliberal ideology was infallible, and that they had us all convinced that real wealth fairly trickles one way when it actually gets sucked the other. They tempt the poorest with promises of meagre rises in the minimum wage, well, even when you earn above it, you're struggling to get by. And hey ho, the next bust after the boom you didn't have a share in will soon be upon you!'

'Well, that makes sense. And it's depressing.'

'Believing in invisible hands of the market is as kooky as going for that invisible dude in the sky nonsense. And like fanatical priests the economic elite are willing to make human sacrifices. They'll bomb any weaker country to hell and back if they think they can snatch its natural resources in the name of democratisation. Ha! For decades they've been turning the ideological screw on us - their own people - even though, until recently, there were still a few things they were afraid of trying on. The financial catastrophe of their greedy making hasn't made them reason and see that they need to do things differently, more humanely - they've grasped an opportunity to put fear into people and finish a job.'

'Johnny, people aren't that bad,' Ian piped up, uncomfortably.

'You mean you don't want them to be that bad.'

'And what's this neoliberal... ?' Ian had to stop himself from exclaiming 'bullshit'. That sounded too much like the Randall of old and Johnny might suspect that his apology was insincere. 'What's this neoliberal ideology talk? You've lost me.'

'The media feeds you with certain information, and certain information only. You're supposed to be lost. That's when you blame the immigrants and the weak. Look, I've to shoot off to my dad's garage, but take it from me, many of the people who cause a financial mess will also profit from it. Everybody else pays. I can lend you some literature that'll give you more than a few ideas. Reading the right stuff gets the grey cells ticking over.'

'I've been doing a bit of reading, as it happens. Some books I had in the attic.' Hiding his doubt about hefty, stuffy, political tomes, Ian added, 'A few recommendations are welcome.'

'Just you wait on a mo!' Johnny flew out of the kitchen and could be heard, clomp-clomp, up the stairs. As Ian slurped his coffee, Sherlock leapt from his lap. He sniffed his way across the lino and, in the corner formed by the washing machine and a cupboard under the sink, he sat up, yawned, and stared quizzically at Ian.

'Yup, the books will be as dull as dishwater, little un,' Ian whispered, grinning, like a naughty schoolboy.

Johnny's footsteps sounded on the stairs. He came into the room and handed over a bulging, black Waterstones carrier.

'Phew! There are some pages in there,' Ian said, taking the weight of the bag. 'Keep me out of trouble for a while, if nothing else.'

'You might want some trouble when you've educated yourself.'

The clock on the wall over the gas oven had a Greenpeace rainbow on its face. 'Want a lift anywhere?' Johnny said, acknowledging the time.

'We caught the train into town. I've a return ticket.'

'The train station it is. By the way, I never knew you were a dog man.'

Johnny crouched down and fussed Sherlock while his master tersely related the sorry story of the pup's origins. Ian desperately wanted to get on the move - the more Johnny's words sunk in, the more the wind died in his sails. He'd be lost, aimlessly drifting on a misty sea, if he didn't anchor himself to something solid. Didn't everything Johnny say reek of socialism? Whatever it really was, socialism had been all right for their grandparents' generation, but think of the rows it would cause now. Ian could visualise the producers of news programmes and newspaper editors spitting at the sound of the word, before licking their lips and briefing their presenters and writers to crow that the civilised world had defeated its curse. Yet Ian had already noticed that they never went on to explain how that same civilised world had ended up in such a shit heap after the bad guys had supposedly had their arses kicked. Clinging onto power and privileges, that's all those people at the top were and are interested in. And it was going to take more than a few of his favourite songs or Johnny's books to put everything right. Ian's one consolation was that he hadn't signed up for anything that was going to be a waste of time. Or put him on the front line of any war, home or abroad.

'...Lovely markings, too.' Johnny stood up. 'Supposedly the sign of a good Jack Russell when their patches don't meet up.'

'He's the best, aren't you, Sherlock?' But what kind of world is it when you can only put your faith in a dog?

Ian followed Johnny into the hall and towards the front door.

'You know, Ian, I can't tell you how surprised I am by you turning up.' Johnny revved his ramshackle Fiesta at the junction. In the few minutes they'd been in the motor, the engine had developed a worrying hoarseness. 'The more people that come round to questioning the ideas they're supposed to accept, no questions asked, the better for everybody it will be. The tiny acorn beginning to grow into the big oak tree.'

'Then what? They turn up with a chainsaw and cut it down.'

'But not before it's disseminated more acorns into fertile land.'

'So they sterilise the soil.'

'Ha! You're arguing the only way they can survive is through something like a scorched earth policy. Doesn't that actually sound like somebody's days are numbered? I wish it was that simple, but they're cleverer than that. And hang fire! Aren't you getting some spirit and hope?'

'I've sussed what a crock of shit everything is. Do you call that hope? I think about my kids and their futures and...' He glanced at the bag of books between his feet and the seat. 'Maybe these will enlighten me; even then, what can one man do?'

Sherlock started yapping in the rear seat. Something exciting was happening through the window, out on the street.

'Hey, get down and shut it!'

Sherlock continued making noise.

'See? Even my dog never listens to me.'

'Just don't do debates with animals or kids,' Johnny grinned.

'As if,' said Ian, making it clear he hadn't been roped in for anything, 'right dishonourable Members of Parliament listen to the likes of me when an election isn't immediately round the corner. Once they've got your vote, they go back on every promise.'

'So you're of the view that democracy is dead? I wouldn't disagree with that unless I was going to say it might never have been alive. But convincing yourself you're powerless is the surest way of losing whatever power you have got. '

'What's the option?' Ian asked grudgingly. 'These people who call everybody comrade, gorge on soya and mooch around in sandals coining politically correct catchphrases? If they're the only crowd I can throw my lot in with, it's not even worth thinking about. You can't eat theories, books, or debates,' he said, with a sudden dose of that easy smugness of a man hiding in cynicism. Sod those rebel songs; didn't he have a few lovey-dovey numbers in his repertoire? Well, ok, he didn't have anyone to serenade, so maybe a few blues numbers; yes, the blues said it all! Except he got that vague, unsettling feeling that had always accompanied his worst lies. Worse still, who could he be deceiving but himself?

So what was a fundamental truth? He needed some readies, of course. That meant a job, and not a minimum wage dead-end. Now that was blues-inducing. He'd heard nothing about any of the applications he'd filled out in his intermittent pragmatic moods. As much comfort as Sherlock could be, didn't he need someone he could trust to talk to? In spite of his early middle-age, Ian bleakly intuited that he was an innocent, ignorant child in a world run by scheming, ruthless, grey old men.

'People always make the deadhead assumption that I believe everything is going to be simple. I know it isn't more than they do,' Johnny asserted, his temper rising because it looked like he'd been right about Randall. He personified a lost cause and wanted everyone to share his futility. Keep doing the same predictable, monotonous things and never rock the boat? No way! 'I'm the one who's stood on street corners and tried to involve people. I've seen with my own eyes how many of them only really know about rules and regulations, how something can't be done, football tables, wannabe pop stars, soap plots and the rest of it. So what? I fight on. I'd rather be dead than feign interest in that superficial dross I'm supposed to be fascinated by.' His eyes blazed across at Ian who was looking away, out of the side window. 'And another thing,' Johnny barked, 'not everybody who's got their own ideas or has had enough of it fits the stereotype that the establishment and their media have drilled into your head. Do I call you comrade or insist that you call black white? I've met fruitcakes in every walk of life, but, as far as I'm concerned, the real lunatics are running the asylum. Anyway, here we are.' Johnny pulled over in the small train station's car park. 'Looks like a train is due.'

'Lucky me,' Ian replied grimly, peering at the platform where a dozen or so people stood. He picked up the carrier bag of books, unclipped his seat belt, climbed out and opened the rear door. Putting on Sherlock's leash, he warily ventured, 'Fair play, Johnny, I'm glad we ironed out our differences. Sausage, chips and beans was never on my menu. As to the rest of it, I don't know. I'll give the books a fair go. It remains to be seen whether I'll understand them.'

'You've enough brains,' Johnny unsmilingly observed, 'just stay open-minded.'

'We'll see.' Sherlock jumped down from the car. 'Catch you later.'

'Look after the books - don't be spilling anything on them.'

Reversing at an angle of forty-five degrees, Johnny's motor screeched to a standstill; he spun the wheel, changed gear, and put his foot down. Maybe Ian's visit proved progress was still possible, maybe not. His 'apology' was likely a move that aimed to ensure his name wasn't blackened in the community. Now the lads had been out of work for a while, they'd come round to seeing things Johnny's way, at least in respect of events at the plant. No great shock to Johnny, they weren't willing to see much else. So did it matter if Randall's sentiments were genuine? It was unlikely he'd ever act on any newfound convictions, or any old ones, for that matter.

What especially bugged Johnny was the common, lazy assumption that he was driven by 'politics'. He'd never had any illusions. He knew he was a foot solider in some ragged, progressive army that always seemed to be on the retreat. With no cash behind him and too many good intentions, he had no chance of a political career. Huh, people seemed capable of thinking anything except the straightforward, honest notion that he might be concerned about his kids and their community. And what was wrong with putting humanity before inhumanity and counting people before profits? Johnny burned with the belief that he was right. My god, the injustice of it! Hadn't other people's apathetic, blind acceptance of anything and everything made his kids easy targets? No matter how well they performed at school, Kelly and Blake were most likely stumbling towards mind-numbing work and a lifetime of scrimping and... Shit! Where the hell? Johnny hit the brakes; his seatbelt tightened across his chest as he jerked forward, wrenching his neck. Ouch! Fuck! The moped swerved and straightened, fizzing off in the direction of the church ruined in the Civil War centuries ago. Rattled, Johnny eased his vehicle forward, telling himself that ordinary people never get the time to think; they're far too busy with their never-ending struggle on the tough old beaten track. And he kept his eyes on it all the way to his father's house.

After an automated announcement, Ian moved to the edge of the platform, the hood of his duffel up, Sherlock like a babe in his arms. Peering under the iron bridge connecting the two platforms and down the lines, he saw the approaching train, closer, closer; to his naked eye, the engine was half the size of a Hornby replica. Wrapped in hats, scarves, thick coats, the other passengers-in-waiting stepped forward, eager to be out of the cold and on their way. Ian half-congratulated himself on just about gaining something he'd wanted: peace with Johnny, who, as ever, had talked a good fight when he couldn't win.

Damn, the world isn't so bad, is it? It seemed true enough that the same sort of people always deal with life's shit, but imagine if they - us - rebelled; wasn't it likely a bloody change for the worse would stain the fabric of everybody's life? Weren't people generally happy enough as long as they had a roof over their heads, ate reasonably well, had clothes on their backs, and could afford a pint or three? But that was just it: regardless of how many hours you put in, you couldn't be sure of providing even that. And get real. He and Cathy hadn't been happy with the simple things in life; there were so many riches, why wouldn't anybody want a share? That very desire was the world's most dangerous thing - it was so easy to manipulate it against you. And so goes the sorry story of millions of wage-slaves.

'Get here, you daft thing!' An anaemic young mother with cold sores told off her snotty-nosed infant son for wandering too close to the platform's edge. He'd been trying to get Sherlock's attention. Kids. Didn't Ian's right and wrong - his truth - concern them? How could he help Alicia and Davie realise their ambitions? Life had many hard lessons, and god knows, he'd screwed up his own dreams. Once upon a time Cathy had been his dream girl - look at how that had turned out! Despite what she'd done, Ian missed his wife like mad. Would he take her back? Her betrayal of him seemed more forgivable when he considered how he'd almost betrayed Johnny and the lads at work...

Ian looked down at the bag of books; could they be expected to provide him with any answers? And if they did, what then? He already knew he wouldn't like what he was going to read. Shouldn't he shut it out and blame everything on immigrants like so many others? Keep life simple.

Blankly, automatically, Ian held up his ticket to be inspected and punched. He was miles and years away, watching cute little Alicia put paper flags on the towers of a huge sandcastle, while keeping one eye on her giggling kid brother as he toddled, in shorts and squelching pumps, down to the sea with a bright red plastic bucket. With typical good humour, Davie had accepted the task of filling the moat so his big sister could position the flags, just so. A few feet away, gorgeous Cathy, in a skimpy black bikini, sunbathed on a lime towel she'd spread out on the sand. The blazing August sun had brought people out in droves; all across the beach, which was scorching hot to bare feet, people played games with brightly coloured bats and balls or else lounged in deckchairs or on towels. Napping, nattering, reading newspapers, books, listening to music, licking ice creams. Ian got a waft of vinegary fish and chips. A man in a kiss-me-quick hat, shades and cut-off shorts was tucking in, cross-legged on a bright purple lilo. His shoulders were lobster red. Ian looked at Alicia, her skin smeared with sticky white cream. Cathy had daubed the stuff on the kids practically every time they'd returned from paddling in the sea...

Back on the train, Ian's throat tightened and his eyes brimmed; how had their happy, secure world been ruined? More than the shortcomings of two people were to blame, he bitterly thought, looking out of the window onto the scrubby, ashy wasteland where a mine had once been sunk. He realised that it was going to be a long, barren night.
Chapter Twelve

A gale with a haunting, vengeful howl like an ice warrior's war-cry, and a ghostly, cruel touch like his deathly blade, sliced through the wet, miserable streets. It abused Alicia Randall as she stepped from the bus station onto the pavement, her black, quilted coat too flimsy to shield her. The girl's hood blew down, and her damp blond hair streamed behind her, as if issuing a warning to go back. With watery eyes, her despondent mutter stolen by the wind, Alicia pulled her hood back up. As she did so, her black canvas bag erratically swung on its strap, twisting across her shoulder like the pendulum of a surrealist clock that could no longer keep time. The encroaching night's supernatural fierceness created in Alicia a sense that she was lost, even though she'd ably find her way blindfolded through these streets, if only she dare. Did 'things' lurk and stealthily glide through the shadows, waiting to pounce? Up above, a swathe of black cloud, like the cloak of a sinister force, concealed the untouchable beauty of the shining stars.

Alicia hurried diagonally across the road and up onto the opposite pavement, which slimily glistened under the lamplight. She imagined gigantic slugs, urgh! Nervously looking around, she perceived that no one else was about. A stinging downpour had just abated and Alicia had caught the brunt of it as she waited for the bus that had brought her into town. Her Ugg boots, sodden up to the ankles, splished and splashed the rain they had soaked up. Her soaked jeans were frozen by the wind's breath and both her thighs ached like raw, dying flesh. Why hadn't Mum phoned to find out if she needed a lift? Humph! She was always working overtime and late home since she'd gone back to the factory. No matter what, cheap and cheerful jelly babies always sold. The girl rooted in her bag and pulled out her mobile. Her head lowered against the wind, she moved down the pavement alongside a low block of stark, sorry-looking, dirty flats, peevishly scrolling through her contacts... 'Mine!' A hand grabbed at her phone and with a scream Alicia let it go, jumping sideways - splash! - into the streaming gutter. One hand over her pumping heart, she stared into Liam Brigg's gloating, bull-dog face. 'You bloody beast!' she yelled, realising, as she glanced over his dry, grey sweatshirt and jeans, that he'd been hiding in the flat's stairwell. 'You could have had me killed! What if a car was coming? Give it back!'

'Think I've got something of yours,' he leered, striding over the narrow, grassy verge between the pavement and the ground floor flats' front doors, 'come and get it.'

'Liam, don't be such a fool.' Alicia stepped up onto the pavement. 'I'll phone the police.'

'What with?' One hand was on number three's door handle, the other flaunted Alicia's mobile in the air. 'To the victor the spoils.'

'You haven't won any...'

Bang! Liam slammed the door behind him. That explained why the thieving sewer rat was always in trouble; what an easy job for the police! Or was it another of those brainless pranks like the boys at college tried on to grab her attention? Oh, for a boy who knew the way to a girl's heart! And what a pain to have to deal with a stupid suitor on a night like this. Liam must be some wild dreamer, and he could dream on - he was any sensible girl's worst nightmare. Her boots squelching and slipping, Alicia crossed the muddy, grassy verge to rap on the door. What she'd give for her pyjamas warmed on a radiator after a soothing hot shower! Her cold knuckles hurt on contact with number three's grimy, white UPVC entrance. Hurry up and open up, you oversized drip, I promised I'd be home for half-past six at the latest. She rapped harder, angrily. The door swung open. 'Hello. What's a nice girl like you doing calling at a hell-hole like this?'

'Funny.'

'The old ones are the best.'

'Give...Hey! Let go!'

Liam roughly grabbed Alicia's arms and dragged her towards him. She tripped over the threshold's lip and Liam, with a gleeful guffaw, let her fall to her hands and knees. The scratty brown carpet, matted with white dog hairs, felt sticky to her slender, long fingers. Disgusting! Like the web of a giant spider that preyed on pets and unsuspecting callers. Ouch! Liam kicked her feet away from the door and slammed it shut. She glared up at him:

'Have you lost the plot, you insect? Give me my phone and let me out! Now! I'll scream so loud your neighbours will phone the police.'

'You always were the queen of the numpties.' Liam turned the key in the lock, removed it, tossed the set in the air, caught it, and pocketed it. 'Welcome to my Cousin Eric's pad. I'm the keeper of the keys while he's away for a few weeks for, naughty, naughty, non-payment of fines. Scream, and the neighbours will think Eric's out and rowing with that mouthy McDonald's muncher he knocks off. Now get up and get in there.'

Liam hauled Alicia to her feet, his strong hands crushing her willowy biceps, a sadistic warning not to mess around.

'Get your filthy paws off me, you animal.' Alicia squealed and wriggled.

'Move!' Liam half-lifted and half-pushed her through the door into the flat's living room. A small, musty box with black mould running up the corners of the cream walls. They were scuffed, stained and chipped as if they'd absorbed the blows of a thousand bloodcurdling domestics. White dog hairs were everywhere, but not a bark or a growl - Cousin Eric didn't trust Liam to look after his pet, so it seemed.

Alicia turned up her nose at the tatty sofa; didn't it just look like it had been salvaged from a dump? How gross! It was probably infested with rats' nests and creepy-crawlies swollen to twice their normal size after feasting on pizza crumbs! She edged away from the sofa, but the battered brown leather armchair, with bright yellow masking tape covering holes in the arm rests, didn't look any more inviting. The armchair faced a huge flatscreen television, featuring a paused X-box game. The barrel of some insanely destructive gun pointed down a war-torn street with smashed, upturned cars and bombed-out hotels and shops. The beige rug under the X-box looked every bit as filthy as the sticky hall carpet. Alicia crossed her arms and shivered; the gas fire wasn't lit and the howl of the wind brought it home that the place was as cold as a crypt. Trying to generate heat, she wriggled her numb toes in her saturated socks.

'What are you pulling faces at? And sit down!' Liam pushed Alicia on the shoulder and sent her tumbling into the sofa. She immediately stood up, imagining that she'd been infected with something shameful. Liam ferociously glowered; he pushed her down again with such rough, determined force that she relented, timidly closing her body like a spineless hedgehog.

'What's this in aid of?' she asked meekly. 'I want my phone, and I want to go home.'

'Let's make a deal.' Liam rubbed his hands together and smiled with such phoniness that there could be no doubt that he'd long since bartered away any halo of childhood innocence. Perhaps life demanded it from him. Alicia edged along the sofa, terrified of intimacy. 'I've no use for this phone,' he crookedly grinned, unabashed. 'How about you lend me your bank card and PIN so I can go and collect the money you've made from your shows? You can have your phone and go home when I get back from the hole in the wall.'

'Are you real?' Alicia cried scornfully, despite her fear.

'I seem to be all here.' Liam touched his head.

'One, they pay me next to nothing; two, I spend it; three, I'm packing it in to concentrate on college; four, I wouldn't give you my last penny if my life depended on it.' Alicia blinked in disbelief at her courage. 'Give me my phone and I'll pretend this never happened.'

'You and your brother are such comedians. The trouble is, your jokes sound too much like excuses to make me laugh. Davie came out with the same crap when I showed an interest in his movies, you know, the scam you alerted me to. It was nice to hear from you after so long. Going to all that trouble on Facebook to get my number, bless. But I got nothing out of that, so I want something from you.'

'You were supposed to scare him off not rip him off.'

'Ah, you were manipulating me. How very wicked.'

'I was... Never mind what I was doing.' Alicia got up from the sofa and held out her hand. 'My phone. It's time I went home, you excuse for a human being.'

SLAP!

Alicia staggered and fell across the sofa like the giant spider of her imagination had injected her with the deadliest venom. The stinging force of Liam's backhand would have filled her eyes, but it was far, far worse than that: the realisation that the thug was serious caused her to weep uncontrollably. She didn't move from the sprawl into which she'd collapsed. Liam put his hands into the big, single pocket on the belly of his grey sweatshirt. 'Look what you made me do,' he said, his conflicting sensations of horror and satisfaction so monstrously twisting his expression that it was difficult to believe, until he impetuously sniggered, that he was a teenage boy.

His phizog slowly registered a subdued confusion, as if he'd expected words fired back. 'I only want you to help me out with some money,' he said, pathetically more than apologetically. 'Tell you what,' he suggested, suddenly upbeat, trying to coax a response, 'give me your card and PIN number and I'll just take half.'

'I haven't anything to give you,' Alicia wailed. Fear gave her the strength to get slowly to her feet, wiping away her tears with her damp coat's sleeve. With one stride Liam blocked her way to the exit. He puffed up his chest and shook his head: 'I can't let you walk out of here, free of charge.'

'I got in for nothing.'

'Even nice girls have to learn that getting into a mess costs nothing while getting out of one costs everything. Lucky for you, I don't want everything - I'm offering a bargain.'

'Let me go!' Alicia threateningly raised her palm.

'You wouldn't dare.'

SLAP!

'You bitch!' Liam blinked the watery shock from his eyes. 'You're going nowhere!' He furiously pushed Alicia in her chest, causing her to fall gawkily over the sofa's arm rest. On her back, her hysterical sobbing took her breath away; coughing and spluttering, her hand nursing her own stinging cheek, she stared through a teary, blurry film at nothing. Liam stood over her, paralysed - one touch of Alicia's spongy, pert breast had sent stupefying waves of tantalising ecstasy up his arms and through his whole body. Burning up, his knees shaky, he stared lustfully at Alicia's long legs hanging like forbidden fruit over the sofa's arms to the floor. Should he pull off her wet, sexy boots and touch her feet? What about her coat? Her jeans? And then? Liam had often fantasised about being alone with Alicia and a thrilling, terrible writhing in his guts and groin made him swivel away from her, his head in his hands: I'm not so bad, no, I'm not so bad! But... Alicia suddenly seemed to have a magical power that could tear him to pieces! 'Shut up!' he barked, her fearful, high-pitched whine unbearably grating, sending a spasm up his spine, infuriatingly weakening him even more. Where had Eric ended up? Prison! How long do you want to spend locked in a cell?

Liam cruelly laughed at himself. Alicia had no power. It was his own desire tormenting him. And he was such a sad, wretched loser that he'd only seen the act in films. But if he didn't know how to do it, he knew how to spend money when he had it. He dragged Alicia's phone from his back pocket. Her contacts. There he is. Poxy Davie boy. The green call button. It rang four times:

'What?'

'Shut up and listen, stroppy. I've got Alicia. You can have her back in brand new Barbie condition in exchange for some of your lovely lolly.'

'The line's bad. Did I hear that right? You're claiming you've kidnapped Alicia? Ho ho ho! I wish you had. You could keep her; she isn't worth more than a couple of pence. Who is this, anyway?'

'Three guesses, my movie-making friend.'

'Liam!'

'I'm too generous with clues,' Liam laughed, relishing the instant anxiety in Davie's voice. 'Now get to a cash machine and get me what I want.' He thrust the phone in Alicia's face. 'Say something.'

'He's got me locked up in...' Liam's sweaty palm covered her mouth. '...Mmm mmm mmm!'

'You wouldn't put your profits before your sister, would you, little crook?' Liam's struggle to muffle Alicia and keep his fingers away from her biting teeth put an angsty menace in his tone. 'Make it worth my while and I'll free her and promise not to say a word to the law about, ouch, fuck, your films.' She hadn't broken his skin. 'You slag!' He pressed hard over Alicia's mouth, and she could feel a sharp, bust sofa spring digging into the back of her skull. Her body went limp as she concentrated on breathing through her nose, closing her eyes to avoid Liam's disturbing glare. He reckoned it was time to spice it up and drive it home. 'I've got some acid...'

'What's going on?'

'Don't interrupt me. I said, I've got some acid and it isn't the type that sends people bonkers at parties. You wouldn't want me to throw it in Alicia's pretty face?'

'Liam, leave her alone.'

'Bring my money to the sorting office, down from the bus station. Give me a ring when you arrive and I'll collect. Happy Liam equals untouched dumb sister. So think presents and not party pooping.' Liam cut the line.

Davie had left Eddie's place two minutes before receiving the call. By the time it had been terminated he'd been so insidiously blown away that a pensioner, gazing through his kitchen window, almost believed that the bewildered, stationary boy was willing the gale to lift him into the air and up to cloud cuckoo land. 'I can't work out these blooming young uns,' he said to his wife, who was stirring sugar into brews. 'I flew a kite but, well...'

Davie checked his call log. It had happened. Receiving a call from Alicia's phone was a flabbergastingly rare incident and... What a rotten bastard! His sister had sounded petrified! And what about her abrupt silence? What had that muscle-bound freak done? Something had to be done to put him in his place and... Davie swallowed. The task of driving Liam back to his festering black swamp had fallen to him. But what could he do on Liam's territory? He... It... Bleurgh! Wrong answer! Keep cool. Use your head because Liam wasn't using his. His brain obviously ran on a cheap battery; it might have enough charge for bullying and petty robbery, but it hadn't lit up the spotlights that would show him this sort of business belonged to a much bigger league. And how insane was he to think that Davie was loaded? Marvellous. Liam was off his rocker and therefore doubly dangerous. Even better, if Davie went to the police, Liam wouldn't keep schtum about the pirate films. It hinged on a big question: did Liam have something on him that could prove it? And what if Alex got dragged into it? Things would get... Arsehole! What was he thinking? Alicia's safety was number one priority, but, oh no! Facing the classic good cop bad cop routine would ruin everything. He'd never get a job with a criminal record! Mum wouldn't let him live it down! A grim future in the shady, drug-soaked underworld seemed to open up before Davie and... Maybe Liam wasn't a bad guy, just a blockhead who needed some sense talking into him. The great dollop probably didn't realise he was putting his black market trainers in a ginormous pile of cronk. Something could be sorted out. And Davie had enough money in his pocket for a bus ride into town. If he ran like mad, he'd make it to the stop. All he had to do was keep Liam's gob moving until he talked himself out of doing anything stupid. Simples. Full bonus points without losing a life! Clutching his mobile as if it was a golden key that opened the treasure chest at the end of a quest, Davie sprinted into the icy wind, his every step hampered by its invisible, powerful push, his every breath fought for. What a good thing he'd nipped home after school to change into his England tracksuit, but oh, how he wished he'd put on a coat! A suit of armour that stopped that wind cutting you in half!

Had he made it? Why couldn't you walk over energy pills and instantly power up in real life? Or complete missions to win special powers that made you all but invincible until you did battle with the beast on the last level? Liam could only be like some overgrown parasite you had to wipe out on level two. Easy-pea... Get a grip! Or else it would be game over for Alicia. One life, that's all you really get. Bent double, panting, Davie peered out from under the bus shelter. Something was going his way - one hundred yards up the road a single-decker slowly nudged round a tight corner.

'Your girlfriend must be something special,' the driver said, a cheesy grin on his pockmarked face, 'to be worth visiting in this lot.'

'Er, yeah,' Davie replied, tearing his ticket from the machine. He turned to the empty seats. The bus jerked forward and Davie fell into the single seat behind the driver. He took it, feeling securer near an adult. Over the aisle, in the space for prams and wheelchairs, a folded tabloid had been discarded. The last word of the screaming headline could be read: '...Idiot!' It seemed to Davie to be accusing him of making a calamitous error of judgement. Since when had Liam listened to sense? And turning up with a used bus ticket wasn't liable to make him open his ears. 'I'm walking into a fight I can't win,' Davie murmured. He seemed to taste the iron of blood. His head started to fuzzily ache and he fidgeted, unable to focus on anything but a gut-churning premonition of imminent slaughter. Why was this happening to him? But then, why did anything happen to anybody? It just did.

The bus bypassed every stop like it was speeding to his doom. In no time it turned right through green lights and trundled up the street to the bus station. Davie bolted upright and stared out of the window. Not a sign of Liam. Was he camouflaged by the night's shadows? How can you beat someone as strong as an ape and as slippery as a shapeshifter? It's impossible. Liam was like some sort of super orc.

Davie thanked the driver, feeling a need for human contact, however slight, rather than to express his gratitude. The bus pulled out the moment he got off. The deserted bus station seemed to echo and feed Davie's loneliness so that it grew into a caterwauling fiend so immense he couldn't take another step with it on his back. He leant against a timetable as if exhausted. The ceiling was cracked. Nothing felt real. Any second, he'd awake from a bad dream, safely tucked in bed, with Alicia's music annoyingly blaring from her room. Just close your eyes and wait - magic - open up. He remained in the bus station. Oh my god. Why hadn't he remembered that Dad knew about the films? He'd also know what to do about Liam! Yahoo! He punched the air. What? His phone. A text. 'It's nearly ugly o'clock!' Liam was losing his patience, which meant Davie couldn't hang about for help. He had to be big and brave on his own two feet. A.K.A. a suicide mission that would be no use to Alicia at all.

Heavy drops of rain were lashed by the wind into Davie's face as he slowed to a jog along the high, blank wall of the Post Office's sorting office. He scanned the flats across the street; which was Alicia's prison? The highest blocks of flats - those furthest from the road - towered over a cluster of smaller buildings, four-storeys high. In total, hundreds of homes. Some with their lights switched on, some in the dark. Did that narrow it down? Even if it did, it would still take a posse of police hours to search them. Liam was in control. Fighting back tears, Davie gritted his teeth; he'd conquered thousands of villains in the virtual world, surely he could beat one for real? Game over was just as final for Liam. All Davie had to do was... The right thing. That meant being brave enough to be honest. It didn't matter if he 'got done' for copying a few films; what a selfish jerk to even think about that! It mattered that he was thinking straight. So, if he couldn't wait for the arrival of someone bigger and stronger because Liam would get suspicious, if he couldn't even be sure that Liam's lair was in the flats - Alicia could be anywhere - he had to... Davie's phone rang. He'd soon find out what he had to do. 'Liam?'

'You're taking too long and I don't trust you.'

'I'm here now.'

'Wait on a minute.'

'I'm not going anywhere without Alicia.' Davie strained his ears. Only screams accompanying murder would have been heard over the groaning wind, so, in this case, nothing was something. Maybe. 'Where is she?'

'Peek-a-boo, I see you. Cool tracksuit but, tut, tut, you should have put a winter coat on. The weather's terrible. Never mind. Cross over the road.'

'I thought...'

'Cross over the road! That's it, mind the traffic.' A solitary red car cut across Davie's path. 'Keep walking.'

'Where's Alicia?' From one floor to the next, Davie surveyed the flats. Not a curtain twitched. 'She'd better be unhurt.'

'She's alive but not doing too much kicking.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Walk down the pavement a bit. No, idiot, that's up the pavement! Come on, down you come. Stop. Face the road. What do you see across it?'

'The Post Office car park. Where are...? Urgh!' A thunderous whack to the back of his head sent Davie reeling. An arm round his throat dragged him off the pavement, backwards, over grass and mud. The next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees on a dirty, sticky brown carpet, shaking his aching head clear. Looking up, he had enough about him to make a mental note that Liam had put the keys in his front, right pocket.

'Now we're even for the trick on the bus. Next time, pay my fare. And while we're talking finance, hand over my money and you and your sister can be on the way. I think you'd better talk her into sealing her lips. Otherwise you might find yourself walking the law's plank, Bumfluffbeard, the softest pirate around.'

'You'd better listen to me, Liam,' Davie said, getting to his feet. 'And then think about what I've said.'

'How come I'm already not liking this?'

'I've already told...'

'Why you lying, cheating...' Liam's hand shot out and pinned Davie to the wall by the throat. 'Where is it?'

'I haven't...' Davie couldn't finish his sentence for choking.

'I get it! Your sister's pretty face means nothing to you?' Liam kicked open a door to Davie's right, at ninety degrees to the front door he'd been dragged through. 'Maybe I should drown you in the crapper, you dirty shit.'

'Stop it, Liam...' Davie rasped, combustion-red.

'Don't tell me what to do!' Liam flung Davie in the other direction, beyond the closed door and into the one that had been ajar. He stumbled through it, clutching his throat, gasping, only to look into his sister's weepy, pitiful face. He saw her hands behind her back, her ankles tied together by electric cable, and he felt his failure as if an arrow had been shot through his heart by a crossbow. No bonus points. One life down. But at least Alicia was breathing. 'How are you?' he asked, croaking.

'He's tied me up too tightly and my hands hurt. He kept slapping my face. And I'm soaked and freezing.'

'Don't worry about catching your death of it,' Liam snarled, 'you might be long gone before a cold can do its worse.'

'Leave her alone. She hasn't done anything to you.'

'That's what I like to see, brotherly and sisterly love.' Liam prodded Davie in the chest. 'Before you join your sister and become a layabout on the sofa, get your hands behind your back.' He grabbed a length of cable that had been coiled like a starved black mamba on the scruffy, brown leather armchair. 'Today not tomorrow.'

'Have you thought this through?'

'Of course. I thought, make it up as you go along.'

'Good thing you haven't got any brains; you're dangerous enough without them.' Davie raised his fists. 'But I'm not scared of you.' His wide, unblinking eyes and drip-white skin told a different story. 'The bigger they come, the...'

'Shut it, jerk. I could beat you with both hands tied behind my back.' Liam casually stepped into the centre of the room and picked up a measuring jug full of... A clear liquid. Alicia twisted her body and hid her sobbing face in a grotty, frowsty cushion. 'But I don't have to bloody my hands on your nose. Put your hands behind your back or else your babe of a sister gets the war-zone look.'

'Do as he says!' The cushion didn't muffle Alicia's distress.

'You'll go to prison for years!'

'Ooo threats. Do you remember how the teachers made out I'm thick? Well, thick people do stupid things, especially when they're scared. Wouldn't it be better to play along with dumb fuck me while I wait to get clever and figure out what I'm going to do?' Liam smiled archly. 'What's it to be?'

Davie couldn't risk it. He lowered his guard, reluctantly putting both hands behind his back. He'd have been battered in a brawl, anyway. A boy can't push back a tank.

'Good move,' Liam said, carefully lowering the jug to the floor. Smiling slyly, watchful, he strode over to and behind Davie. The winner's hot breath tickled the loser's neck as the cable wrapped round his wrists. Liam yanked it tight - it dug into Davie's flesh:

'Ah, that's too much.'

'No, it's knot. Not and knot? Geddit?' Liam pushed Davie between his shoulders and he toppled like a skittle onto the sofa, his head slamming into Alicia's lap. 'Don't munch her lettuce,' Liam laughed, 'incest is also illegal. Haven't you committed enough crimes? You don't want a reputation for being a perverted pirate, Bumfluffbeard, me hearty.'

'Has he done anything to you?' Davie asked his sister, hauling himself into a sitting position.

'Not like that,' she blubbed. 'Why didn't you tell someone else?'

'I was scared he'd do something to you. I thought he'd listen to sense.'

The shock of Davie's admission staunched his sister's tears: 'You turned up without any way of beating him?'

'Do you know what, Alicia?' Liam revelled in the tension between siblings. 'We've found something we agree on. Young Davie is a waste of space. And it bugs me in the extreme that he expects me to believe he's frittered away his money.'

'The teachers were right about you,' Davie said, sourly, for want of anything better to say.

'Who's so smart he let me tie him up?'

'You did that with brawn not brains.'

'I've got the brains to use my brawn.'

'But you can't work out that we're not rich.'

'You must have made something. And your house is as posh as a palace.'

'We live on an estate that was originally built for miners, Liam. And you must have heard that I stopped making films ages ago.'

'What about the money she makes from prancing about in front of dirty old men?'

'You're really having a laugh now.'

'I am?'

'She spends money as soon as she gets her hands on it.'

'Do you think bad news makes me happy? You're both in show business and here I am, a willing and eager audience, getting more and more pissed off. That's not good for your careers.'

Liam walked over to the curtains and peered through a gap he made in them, as if checking that a crowd who hadn't bought tickets to his performance weren't about to storm the stage. Discontent with his role, Davie struggled to free his hands. 'Mine are tied too tight,' Alicia silently mouthed. She'd already tired herself trying to rewrite Liam's sketchy, barmy script by fighting with everything she'd got when he'd cut the cables from the broken vacuum and washing machine. He was too strong not to overpower her, like he was too reckless not to make a mistake...

He hadn't seized Davie's phone. And Davie knew he had to act fast. Pretty soon Mum would be getting worried. The scrawled message he'd left on the kitchen worktop about going to Eddie's house might buy him a little time, but it would take just one call or text from someone else to alert Liam to his gaffe. Davie had to get his phone on silent mode until he had a chance to send an SOS.

'We're in a fix,' Liam proposed, turning round.

Davie sat perfectly still.

'I don't get what I want, and you expect me to let you walk out of here so you can report me.' He took out Alicia's phone. 'This isn't a big enough prize for the bother you'll cause me.'

'You should have thought about that before you did anything!' Alicia bawled angrily.

'We won't say anything, Liam, really we won't,' Davie pleaded. 'We've got to stay quiet, Alicia, or else he'll report me for the films.'

'Nice try, Davie. We both know that I can't prove anything. We both know that, with my record, they'll hit me as hard as they can.'

'The longer you let this go on, the more likely we are to be missed. Let us out now and no one will ever need to know.'

Alicia's ring tone sounded as if to emphasise Davie's point. Liam studied its screen.

'That's our mum, isn't it?' Davie discreetly tried to slip his wrists free. 'She'll fret when there's no reply.' And, shit, that's when she'll call me. 'Act now and we can make up a cover story.'

'After that trick you played on the bus?'

'It's either trust me or blow it up into something mega-serious.'

'And what about her gob? Do me a favour? Shut up and let me think.' Liam dropped into the armchair. His chin on his hand, he scrutinised them for long minutes. To Alicia his gaze seemed alien, reptilian. Any second a giant, slimy tongue might dart out of his mouth and give her the lick of death. And look at the state of Davie's throat \- it had a fingerprint pattern of bruises! Davie ignored the soreness, wondering what the hell went through Liam's mind.

It was with a question that Liam broke his brooding silence. 'What do I do with a pair of fakes who walk round like they own the place, when really they're as skint as the rest of us?'

'Let us go, Liam,' said Davie, appealing to Liam's embryonic resignation. 'You can't do anything else.'

'I'm cold and hungry,' Alicia complained when Liam just vacantly looked at them. 'You can't starve us.'

'There's nothing in here for you to eat,' Liam sullenly replied.

'That means you'll have to let us go some place where we can get food,' Alicia insisted as if she was speaking to a child who couldn't see beyond his petulance.

'You ought to have tried living in my shoes. When I was younger I went without all of the time. The pair of you are spoiled brats.'

'You mean you're a rat...'

That's it, Alicia, keep him occupied, thought Davie, excited. The cable had loosened. Once his hands were free, they only had to fool Liam into leaving the room. And if he was gone long enough, Davie would do more than put his phone on silent mode. A quick call or a text to Dad and Liam's game would be over. A text, yes, that was the best idea; they could keep on pretending until help arrived...

'...You're going to be in so much trouble for this, Liam Briggs,' Alicia said, concluding her speech, which seemed to have lifted her spirits. 'And you'll deserve everything.'

'Excuse me if I fall asleep. Do you know I first got caught when I tried to steal crisps and a pork pie because I hadn't had any breakfast or dinner? What do you think that feels like when you're seven years old?' His lip quivered. His passion brought his fist down on the arm rest of his chair. 'Answer that!'

'It feels disgusting breathing the same air as you. I've no sympathy. You make enough selling dope to college kids, and even then you get greedy and try to steal from us.'

'You can never have enough when your parents kick you out because their money has been stopped. You're on the right track in another way - a smoke will chill me out and enable me to work it out. Tactics, that's what I need.' Liam got up, walked over to the gas fire, and took a pocket-sized tin and a small plastic bag of green weed from behind the clock. 'And stuff our Eric's bills. I'm not freezing while I watch his flat.' He turned the fire on, full heat. 'Better?'

Alicia said nothing, just looked into the glow.

'Who's Eric?' asked her brother.

'A son of a gun.' Liam sat down. As he was opening his tin, Alicia's phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and pressed a key: 'Have a bit of voicemail, yummy mummy. Where was I?'

'I demand you let me speak to my mum. And right away.'

'Oh?' Liam glanced across at the jug of acid and then returned to his tin and his plastic bag. Working in silence, he soon held up a long, fat joint. 'Immaculate,' he grinned. 'And I think I'll turn this phone off - don't want any unwanted calls spoiling my smoke.'

'Him drugged up and capable of anything, exactly what we don't need,' Alicia muttered just loud enough for her brother's ears. He grinned at her in reply. His hands were free! He kept them hidden behind his back and Liam was too busy puffing away, filling the room with smoke that smelled like stale cat's piss, to notice the sparkle in Davie's eyes. They had a chance. It was about heart, cunning and timing now.

With Sherlock pulling on his leash out in front and a Spar carrier vacillating in the gale, Ian Randall turned the corner onto the street. Trust him to run out of bread and cigarette papers on such a godforsaken night. Hello. What had brought Dan out in it? His brother's maroon saloon was parked outside the front gate. Dan couldn't be so eager for a chat or to pick up some tools, which left bad news. A decision about selling the house? The last thing Ian wanted to worry about right now. Damn it, he'd have to bite the bullet; Dan couldn't keep a house off the market to put a roof over somebody else's head. Ian would have to suffer the indignity of moving back in with his parents at his age. Every direction seemed to allow only backward steps.

Having taken Sherlock off his leash, Ian put his carrier of shopping on a kitchen worktop, here goes! Let's have it! He followed the pup through to the living room. Dan was down on his knees alongside, but facing away from, his half-assembled Harley. 'Grab your mutt - I've got to make sure I've got it up!'

'What's happened?' Ian grasped Sherlock's collar and lifted up his squirming pup.

'What possessed you to bring the big mirror down?' Using a hand brush, Dan swept the last few broken shards into a dustpan. 'What a frigging mess.'

'Dan, I leave the place for five minutes...'

'It was smashed when I got here. It must have slid down the wall.'

'On the way out a gust of wind seemed to blow through me and into the house,' Ian remembered, his head to one side avoiding Sherlock's loving licks. 'I'm surprised I didn't hear it.'

'I guess the house gets seven years of bad luck. That means you're planning on staying.'

'Going on the state of the place when I moved in, it's already had the bad luck.' But what? Dan wasn't expecting him to move out? 'What's brought you round in this weather?'

'Your need of a mobile. Cathy phoned me. Have you seen anything of the kids?'

'No. Why?'

'She can't get in touch with them.' Holding the dustpan and brush in one hand, Dan pulled his mobile from the pocket of his leather jacket, and handed it over. 'She wants you to ring her.' He went through to the kitchen. Putting Sherlock down, Ian followed his brother as far as the doorway. He watched Dan tip the remains of the mirror into the kitchen bin. 'Go on, use it,' Dan said, looking up.

'She's all for contact when it suits her, then.' Ian looked dubiously at the phone. He felt as if he needed lines, like an actor who'd lost the confidence to improvise. Wasn't a natural conversation with his 'wife' impossible? Pfft! Failing to call her when she was worried about the kids could make things trickier than they already were, and Davie had some way to go before he was eighteen. Ian jabbed at the keyboard and raised the phone to his ear. 'Hello, it's Ian. What is it?... No, I haven't seen them... Of course I'm sure... They're probably round at some friend's place waiting for the weather to improve before they make a move... No, it isn't like Alicia... Ok. Ok. Ok. I'll make my way over there. Bye.'

'You're not at her beck and call, you know.'

'You soon shot here.'

'I was driving roundabouts. I've been for a kebab which will be flat cold on the car seat, thank you.'

'You can do me a favour, then?'

'When are you going to get that car of yours back on the road?'

'When I've the spondulicks. And thanks, mucker, I owe you.'

Unsurprisingly, traffic was light, and they had soon left one town behind and passed the welcome sign of its close neighbour and traditional rival. On the road skirting the outer wall of the Norman castle ruins, a slanting deluge like the sky itself was falling caused Dan to slow down to a tentative crawl. 'Maybe the kids are shacked up in a submarine,' he tetchily joked, wishing he was at home because, hey, listen to me, Ian, kids get up to all sorts of shit their mamas and papas don't know about.

Ian's eyes laboured to see beyond the swamped windscreen wipers. On this side of the castle wall, a malfunctioning streetlight flickered as if the wind was close to blowing it out. It emitted enough light for Ian to make out, over the castle wall, on the overgrown, muddy rampart, several blurred silhouettes of the colossal trees that the earth had thrown up over the years as natural sentinels. The gale bent and shook their leafless limbs like an invader throwing everything into a final assault to sweep the fortress from the face of the land. Of course, the ruins would still be there in the calmer morning after the storm, yet visions of loose masonry falling and ancient trees uprooting convinced Ian that Cathy was right. The kids would never willingly stay out in this. The mental image of a dripping, clammy dungeon troubled him.

Though the downpour lost some of its wild vehemence, discomposing scenarios continued to run through Ian's mind as Dan drove up the hill, beyond the scrapyard and over the bridge across the rail lines. On the crest of the hill, they turned right, into the estate. 'It never rains,' Ian groaned. A police car was parked outside his former home.

'We used to worry our people sick. Teenagers will be teenagers. Don't be too hard on them.'

'They're not home. Cathy would've let us know about them turning up. Especially if the police had hauled them home by the ears. Cathy wants the police to search for the kids.'

'You want me to have Sherlock for an hour or two?' Dan asked, after pausing for thought.

'When he sits staring at you, it means he needs to do some business outside.' Ian unfastened his seat belt as Dan pulled up behind the police car. Reaching over to the back seat, Ian patted Sherlock. 'See you in a while, pup. I'll let you know what's going on, Dan.'

Dan watched his brother hurry down the garden path while Sherlock whined and pawed at the window. 'Hey doggie, relax. We've got a cold kebab to share.'

Ian halted at the door to tell himself to get his act together. Without knocking or removing his boots, he opened up and stepped inside. His stomach rumbled at the aroma of stew wafting into the hall from the kitchen. A conversation emanated from the living room. His entrance caused the middle-aged, paunchy police constable to stop in mid-speech, his grey, fuzzy moustache twitching. The brown eyes of his young, blonde female colleague distrustfully swept over Ian's face. Ian clocked the yellow-head on her chin, vaguely dismissed her as being as callow as Davie, and looked expectantly at Cathy. 'There you are,' she said, wringing her hands and unconsciously scratching at her violet nail varnish. She glanced at his boots, then from one constable to the other. 'This is Alicia and Davie's father. My estranged husband. I spoke to him over the phone before you arrived.'

'I was explaining to Mrs Randall,' the gravelly-voiced policeman started, holding Ian's gaze, 'that teenagers often go astray for a few hours. You haven't seen or heard anything of them today, sir?'

'I would have told Cathy if that was the case.'

'And you feel there's nothing unusual about their lack of contact with you?'

'I don't hear from them every day. The unusual thing is that they haven't let Cathy know where they are.'

'Mrs Randall says as much. I note that she describes you as her 'estranged husband'. Have you been separated for long?'

'Quite recently,' Ian replied, subdued.

'Quite recently.'

'That's what I said.'

'Do you think the erm, breakdown of your marriage may have caused your children to behave out of character?'

'Who can tell?' Ian uncomfortably glanced at Cathy.

'Alicia and Davie have gradually adjusted to their new circumstances,' Cathy said warmly, crossing her arms. 'They're bright enough to realise that deliberately going missing won't reconcile me and my husband.'

'Thank you for so clearly putting us in the picture,' the female constable said, subtly injecting insinuation into her every word. Her colleague's piercing gaze briefly seemed to pinpoint the blame on Ian. 'It's half-past nine, quite early,' the female constable continued, 'and it's quite possible that they're round at friends that they think you don't approve of.'

'It's equally possible that they're knocking about somewhere together,' her paunchy counterpart added.

'In that weather?' Ian's tone was contemptuous.

'The leisure complex, sir?'

'I can't see Alicia hanging round bars that tend to get rowdy at this time of an evening.' Cathy sounded adamant.

'When we grow older we often lose the sense of adventure that inquisitive teenagers thrive on.'

'I wouldn't bet on it,' Ian said sharply, his eyes shooting sideways at the thought of Cathy's double life. He seemed to shrivel up inside. 'And generalising,' he went on, unable to quell his umbrage, 'doesn't explain why our daughter hasn't phoned.'

'She isn't behaving out of character - something is preventing her from being her usual self,' Cathy elaborated, yet wondering - as Ian strode across the room and leaned on the wall over the mantelpiece, looking down, as if he couldn't face anyone - if it had been such a good idea to contact him. Traces of her former repulsion and attraction, indifference and sympathy, caused her to blush as the policeman observed her stockinged feet shuffling like the laminate floor was too hot to stand on. The heavy silence that hung over the room grotesquely mocked Cathy. Nothing was being done and her babies were in some sort of peril! 'What do you propose to do?' The hard resolve in her voice made Ian spin round in shame; this wasn't about their marriage, it was about their kids. Cathy didn't notice his contrite gaze. Her arms crossed, she looked from the policeman to the policewoman. 'Well?'

'Parents don't want to believe half of the things we find out about their kids. It's important to remember that missing teenagers nearly always turn up. I'd like to ask your husband if anything jogs his memory that might help us satisfactorily conclude....'

'What's that supposed to imply?'

'That I'm looking at all possibilities.' Licking his lips under his fuzzy moustache, the policeman's eyes intently searched Ian's eyes. 'We've pointed out to your estranged wife, Mr Randall, that we haven't had any reports of accidents involving teenagers. Our patrols have descriptions of Alicia and Davie. The best thing you can do' - his female colleague moved towards the door - 'is remain calm and let us know as soon as you hear from them. Try not to worry. We'll make our own way out. For now, goodbye.'

Ian spun away. The photographs of Alicia and Davie in school uniform mounted on the wall over the sofa tugged his heart strings. Cathy followed the police out of the room. Ian heard her ask: 'Are you taking my children's disappearance seriously?'

'All calls are taken seriously, Mrs Randall, I...' The policeman's voice became inaudible under the howl of the wind. The door had opened. The howl diminished as it shut.

'Useless,' Cathy said, on returning.

'They could be right. Dan's of a similar opinion.'

'Are you?'

'If it was only Davie, I'd be less inclined to worry. Have you seen any signs that Alicia's got a boyfriend she's keeping quiet about?'

'None at all. And she can't hold her water...' Cathy crossed her arms, recalling that her daughter hadn't let on about her affair with Michael for a long time. Her lip quivered.

Ian stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, running his fingers through his wavy, brown locks. A little voice told him he should reach out and hug the distraught mother, and a more powerful feeling like the storm outside warned him that such intimacy belonged to another lifetime. In her denim skirt and lavender blouse, Cathy appeared to be the same woman, but, looking down at himself in his old duffel, jeans, battered boots, he was a different man. He found himself asking: 'How are you?'

'Going out of my mind. Alicia left Sally's in time to be home just after six. Davie left Eddie's not much later. They most definitely weren't together. And they're both missing. Why aren't they answering their phones?'

The idea of them socialising was mind-boggling.

'I've a suspicion that Davie will be up to some caper. He isn't answering because he doesn't want to be told to come home.'

'And Alicia?'

Ian shrugged, uneasily.

'I'm getting in the car to make sure someone's really out there looking for them. I've charged my mobile. They can get hold of me and I'll keep ringing home to see if they've returned. I'll put a key in the hiding place.'

'You'll be wanting some company?'

'Do you need to ask?'

An appalling hush like that which descends - after the screams - on dazed, awed, terrified survivors of an explosion had come over Alicia and Davie. The wuthering gale, outside, seemed to belong to another world. This was Liam's domain, and he had very nearly done it. 'One more noise and you're finished,' he'd threatened, diabolically tilting the jug of acid over Alicia's head.

'P-p-please...'

'You're cold and wet? Be thankful it's rainwater.'

Alicia sunk into the shabby sofa; it appeared to be capable of absorbing her.

Davie's eyes goggled as he imagined trying and failing to knock the jug out of harm's way - Alicia's scalp and face melted like those of a model during an arsonist's attack on the waxworks.

'Did you ever sing that oldie about silence being golden?'

Alicia shook her head, her eyes glued to the jug.

'Make up for it now. Zip it up.' Liam put the jug on the carpet and jigged to his armchair, waving his hands like a psychotic conductor who dreamed of discord and the destruction of harmony.

S-s-scary! Tears trickled down Alicia's cheeks and, just as silently, Davie's body heaved with relief. How would he have forgiven himself if he hadn't lifted one finger of his free hands to save Alicia? Yet the element of surprise couldn't be wasted! Even if he'd acted and successfully knocked the jug flying, the danger would have been far from over. Once Liam got over his astonishment, the ensuing tussle would have produced only one winner. And then what would Liam have done to his sister? Davie closed his eyes, relishing the luck that seemed to be repenting for deserting them.

With all the luck in the world, only boxing clever would do. Thinking, working it out, waiting for and seizing the moment. Stealthily freeing his hands had been a start that Davie had built on when Liam had stepped into the kitchen. As soon as he'd heard the taps running, he'd slipped his mobile out of his rear pocket. Hurry up! Yes! It was muted! His hands were behind his back again in the nick of time. Liam entered the room, crunching on a value brand packet of crisps. It was a minor miracle; Davie's phone silently vibrated against his rump. No doubt Mum was beside herself.

'Look what I found,' Liam said, childishly teasing with the crisps, licking the prawn and cocktail flavour from his fingers.

Perhaps it was the knowledge of Davie's successful move that fired up Alicia. 'Get this cable off my hands!'

'Who are you talking to?'

'Take it easy, Alicia.' Davie looked into his sister's eyes, futilely attempting to hypnotise her into biding their time. 'Liam deserves some crisps.'

'I'm cold, wet, hungry, and I'm sick of the sight of his ugly mush! I want to go home!'

'I'll show you, you jumped up poseur!' Liam dropped the empty crisp packet to the floor and reached for the jug...

But they had survived. Somehow. Even though it was all getting far too much. Davie needed paracetamol. When nothing makes sense how do you use your head? Liam was like a brick wall that towered so high it was impossible to scramble up and peer over. Had he got acid in the house because he'd planned this? If so, why was everything else such a botch-up? Like cable cut from household appliances for restraints? And how had Liam got Alicia in here in the first place? The more Davie thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Liam had had other ideas for the acid: Alicia presented such an easy target he couldn't resist striking out. Yes, Liam had been so bent on petty revenge for that trick on the bus he'd stupidly forgotten to snatch Davie's mobile. Hardly evidence of thinking ahead; in that case, what else might Liam be up to? Such information could be the key to tricking him and coming out on top.

Davie scanned the room for clues. Everything pointed to the grubbiest poverty but the big television and the X-box. Were they stolen goods or paid for by drugs or on someone's catalogue account? Was it relevant? How could the furnishings of someone else's room provide answers about Liam's plans? So, what about him? Short cropped hair, bull-dog face, bulging muscles, thighs like a rhino's, in short, an ugly slab of brawn. His brain had to compute something. How did you get through to him? What might lull him into a false sense of security? Davie drew blanks. He'd only heard the rotten tales of deprivation, thuggery and thieving. To most people Liam was a nasty mystery that wasn't worth the effort required to work him out. Who knew what he got up to but him? He likely got away with a hell of a lot more than he got busted for. Like the time he'd confiscated skinny Jase Jackson's cigarettes and pinned him down on the school field, lighting them up, one by one, slowly stubbing out the whole packet on his victim's neck. Liam's playground motto had been 'all's fair in love and war' though nobody ever saw him play a foul trick for love's sake. He didn't recognise love because he'd never been shown it - Liam best understood enmity and fear. And that's why and how he'd exploited and controlled Alicia rather than seen that she needed kindness. In the pale, red-eyed girl Liam identified the weakness that he'd overcome in order to survive as a snotty-nosed, light-fingered urchin that had grown into some kind of beast. Liam was simultaneously pitiable and loathsome, and Davie needed to smother his intense feelings of repulsion or else he'd be the one making an impulsive mistake. And Liam knew how to punish those who opposed him.

'Oi! I said, what are you thinking about?'

'I've got a bit of bellyache.'

'Or an overactive imagination. You'd better not be hatching any devious plans.'

'No, really.'

'You'll have to fart it out because you'll get no nursing off me. I might put you in hospital, though, if you become too much of a pain in the arse, hur hur.'

Just how do you deal with someone who doesn't seem to know that right and wrong exist? Even unthinking animals have empathy; did Liam believe he'd only ever been wronged and so he didn't care about anything, least of all if the acid left scars on Alicia's skin or the ordeal left them on her mind. Davie knew he'd rather be dead than be like that. And he'd never felt so much for his sister. He wanted to squeeze her tight and say sorry for the times he'd tormented her. That had been in fun, hadn't it? Not for the first time, Davie's eyes searched the room for a weapon. There was nothing but the acid. If he lacked the nerve to drench Liam in it, he could at least remove its menace by throwing it up the wall. And then? Would he be fast enough to clonk Liam's tough nut with the jug? It'd likely bounce off without causing his adversary to bat an eye. And for all his bulk, Liam was as quick as a devil. Before he'd been expelled, the teachers had tried to get him interested in sports. Just the once he'd turned out for the school rugby team and run rampage, scoring three tries in quick succession before being sent-off for biting in the scrum. Davie's heart plummeted to the pits of his guts. Make a dash for the jug and Liam would swat him like a fly. Why, oh why, was I born such a wimp?

On the mantelpiece over the gas fire, several unopened brown and white envelopes of various sizes were propped back to back against the wall. Two Star Wars figures - Obi-Wan Kenobi and Vader - faced each other, light sabres drawn, at the other side of a plastic red and black clock whose hands wrongfully indicated that it approached noon or midnight. Worried that he and his sister were running out of time, too scared to attempt a decisive move, Davie had, in all the drama, only just noticed the clock's tick. Ever since it had got louder, intimidating, like it was counting down... Tick, tick, tick... Atishoo! He nervously jumped at Alicia's sneeze.

'Bless you! You both fall down.'

'You'll have to phone us a taxi. She's coming down with something bad because you've made her sit in wet clothes.'

'Don't be such a drip. It's the dog hairs. They make me sneeze.'

'Why don't you vacuum them up?'

'Because it's fucked. So shut it.'

Where was the animal, anyway? Did it belong to the Eric that Liam had mentioned? Was he likely to turn up with it? Any mate of Liam would have nurtured a vicious brute. 'Who's Eric?'

'For me to know and you to find out.'

'His cousin', said Alicia. 'He won't be coming because he's otherwise detained.'

'In prison?'

'Shut it goes for the pair of you!'

Tick, tick, tick...

'Have you got a heart?'

Liam leered at the question, getting up. He walked over to the window to peer out through the curtains again. If not Eric, was he expecting someone else? Did Eric or someone else own the dog? A hell-hound snapping at them would complete the nightmare.

'I...' Liam started and then, frowning, seemed to think better of speaking. He took another peek outside before returning to his armchair. His increasing edginess was a big red danger sign. And didn't they say grass made people paranoid? Liam was loopy enough without added extras. Whatever Davie tried when the time came, it had to be perfectly executed. Drag Liam to the edge, he had to make sure only Liam went over. Fail, and Davie and his sister wouldn't be hanging on by their fingertips - Liam would stamp on their hands and let them plummet. Davie winced at a horrific hallucination of twisting and flailing through the air, Alicia below him, screaming, her hands grabbing at nothing and then... Her sickening, bloody end. Dashed on the jagged rocks with a wild, roaring sea rushing, foaming red, over her corpse and - no! - the rocks were arggghhhh! Davie closed his eyes, blocking it out, wondering about the dark thoughts that came to Liam, as they surely did. Like a psycho from a film he'd derived a weird kick out of terrifying Alicia with the acid. The hideous things they did to their victims in movies! And some were based on real events. Was Liam capable of any of that?

'What you staring at?' Liam asked with strung-up aggression. Was he realising how deep he was in it? It was unlikely he'd go down without causing maximum damage to his enemies. And how would he react if or when he discovered that Davie had been fooling him again? The sight of his distraught sister engulfed the young teenager with desperation... Tick, tick, tick.... Every second had to be turned to their advantage. How did he make Liam believe he could get out of it without hurting his prisoners?

'Lost the tongue in your head?'

'I was thinking that I don't want to see any of us making a mess of things,' Davie replied, angelically.

'I never knew a little turd could be so sweet.'

'It's like my granddad says, me and Alicia are young...'

'How clever of him.'

'...our whole lives are in front of us and we don't want to do anything at a young age that jeopardises our futures.'

'Pity you met me,' Liam laughed.

'Doesn't the same thing apply to you? Think about it.'

'I think,' Liam said, yawning, 'none of this would have happened if you weren't precious about your movies. You had the chance to be a friend and you chose to be a foe. It's your fault.'

'I didn't lie to you, Liam; you've got to believe me.'

'I don't have to do anything I don't want to, kiddo.'

'I swear the movie thing didn't work out. People were complaining about dud copies...'

'Hardly surprising. You two are duds.'

'It was a stupid dream. And that's the truth.'

'Everybody lies to me, Davie boy. It's always been the way. Oh, his parents are this, that and the other, so treat him like he's thick. Treat him like he's a piece of shit. He doesn't need any of the things everybody else has got. And when I go out and get some of it for myself, what do they do? Call the law. I get cautions, fines, bull from judges, bull from the police, bull from solicitors, bull from social workers, bull from neighbours, bull from teachers. Fuck their bull because they're all two-faced cheats! And fuck you! Why should I think you're different?'

'I turned up willing to talk to you, didn't I? I didn't come with any tricks.'

'You came here because I held the strings that moved you.'

'Letting go of them is the way to get off.'

'They'll be looking for you by now, my puppet.'

'Not me...' This was hazardous territory - Liam only had to think on and ask why Davie's mobile hadn't rung... 'I'd arranged to stay at Eddie's house. I was on the way round there...' When you phoned. Shit. 'All we need to do is make up a story for Alicia,' he quickly proposed, getting away from the subject of phones. 'Problem solved.'

'She'd blab.' Liam glared at Alicia like he hated her guts. 'Look at the state of her. Big baby. There is a way out - I've just got to work it out. My mistake was grabbing the bitch without thinking about it.'

He hadn't planned it! What crime had he intended to use the acid for?

'Why didn't you cut me in with your film scam, huh? I've a good mind to give you some of this right now.' Liam held up a hammer-like fist.

'There must be some better way to make money?'

'Like get one of those well-paid jobs that don't exist? Don't bore me. Maybe I should do you both in and do a runner.' Liam smirked evilly when Alicia jolted upright. 'You'd be famous, Alicia. Your face would be plastered over the television and newspapers. Your problem being that you wouldn't be around to enjoy it, ha!'

'You'd be caught in no time,' Davie claimed, rolling his eyes. It was nothing to lose your nerve about - Liam had been making a cruel joke at their expense. Hadn't he?

'So, for all your friendly waffle about our futures, you actually think I'm capable of becoming some dumb killer?'

'I didn't say that.' But Davie felt himself burning up red-faced at the knowledge he'd taken some bait. Idiot! Wasn't he the one supposed to be laying traps?

'Maybe you're right.' Liam grinned cynically.

'Just let us go!'

'With my record? They'll throw the book at me and I hate reading. So, Davie boy, little shit, I ask myself again: what do I do with the pair of you?'

Such blustery, wet, miserable streets wouldn't seduce a teenage girl who panicked at the very thought of being seen in public with a hair out of place, or her kid brother who spent half of his life shut in his room as if his games console was a portal to a better, more fascinating world; on that much, Ian and Cathy agreed. 'But you must have overlooked the one person who knows their whereabouts.'

'Like who?' Cathy asked, irritably, changing gear. 'And you've already said you thought they wouldn't be together?'

'I don't know and I did, but...' She was right. Ian had racked his brain and hadn't come up with one new idea. 'I daren't ring my parents to see if they've turned up round there. Not yet.'

'I told you they were the first people I thought about. Because I haven't rung them again they probably think the kids have got home.'

'Just as well. It could give my mother a heart attack.' Ian sighed frustratedly. The whole town had shut itself indoors judging by the dim lights behind drawn curtains from one empty street to the next. Even the doorways of a row of shops where a notorious teenage gang hung out, making no good plans, were abandoned. Not a cigarette end glowed in the shadows. 'Hey! What about that bloody deluded butcher who thinks he's the missing link between Brian Epstein and Simon Cowell? Has he got Alicia a gig you don't know about?'

'He couldn't wait to put the phone down. Alicia told him on Tuesday that she'd had enough. The slaughterhouse has more life than the last dive he expected her to win over.' Cathy shuddered; her earlier macabre vision of a blood-soaked Boden, fiendishly grinning, putting the heinous tools of his trade away after filling black bags with... 'He's unpleasant but not...' One of the monsters that made headlines? How could anybody tell? Her poor babies! 'Do you think something serious has happened?'

'Don't be running away with yourself, Cathy, please.' It was bad enough that he was wobbling all over the place. 'I'm sure they're fine other than being short of a good old-fashioned rollicking.' That sounded better. 'I can see them turning up, throwing tantrums, making out they're allowed no freedom.' Yes, these were the right lines! 'There's just something we're missing. Are you sure she hasn't got in with some half-soaked lad?'

'That wouldn't explain Davie's disappearance.'

'No.' Balls. The 'right lines' had led to a dead end in record-breaking time.

'I've gone over everything a thousand times. The things that have entered my mind...' Like evil shadows overpowering and forcing her kids into the back of a van with a false registration plate, or tempting them with the designer drugs that sent sleazy stars on their way to immortality. What if they'd overdosed and collapsed, vomiting, in a seedy alley? No! It wasn't true! Alicia and Davie weren't ignorant! There would be a perfectly innocuous explanation. What?

Cathy had arrived home shortly before six after unenthusiastically completing another stint of overtime. All said and done, she supposed she ought to be thankful, some people couldn't get enough hours, and her new job in despatch kept her out of Michael's way and seemed, well, time would tell whether or not robotically pressing the same computer keys would send her round the twist. She put the kettle on and skimmed over Davie's note about going to Eddie's. Alicia had said she'd be home around six; the stew needed to be heated ready in time for tea at quarter to seven.

It was still simmering at seven, but, ok, Alicia's eighteen, let her have some room for manoeuvre. Cathy watched the hand of the clock reach quarter past. Another ten minutes came and went. For the umpteenth time, Cathy guessed that her daughter was stuck in the eye of the storm. High time to make a call! Alicia couldn't accuse her of nagging if she offered a lift. It wasn't unusual that Alicia didn't answer, but it was extraordinary that she didn't call back in a couple of minutes. Maybe Sally's mum was driving her over and Alicia didn't want to be embarrassed by an 'over-protective parent'. Oh gawd, listen to that rain against the windows! And that wind! 'Well, madam, like it or lump it,' Cathy said aloud, 'it's time to sort this out!' Come on, answer it! Alicia's phone switched to voicemail. What was the girl up to? Saying thanks and goodbye as she got out of Sally's mum's car? It would be typical, getting worked up when Alicia was almost on the doorstep. Cathy strode through to the living room and peered hopefully through a gap in the curtains. The lamppost illuminated the driving, torrential rain, nothing else. Oh, Alicia was going to get such a flea in her ear for making her worry on a night like this! 'But I'm an adult!' That was all Cathy seemed to hear of late. Well, Alicia had to learn to abide by house rules! Just you wait, lady... Alicia's phone had been switched off! Had she lost it? Had someone picked it up, finders keepers? There was one thing left to do, and that was break Alicia's prohibition and ring Sally's home number.

'Are you sure?'

'Positive. Alicia left ages ago - she didn't want to be late home for her tea.'

Cathy stared at Alicia's old school photo mounted on the wall. Such a pretty young thing. They had got her this far through life, please, please, don't say something has happened to her! And what the hell were they playing at letting her walk to the bus stop in weather like this? 'I do hope my call hasn't been too much of an inconvenience,' she said stiffly. 'Goodbye.'

'No bother. Bye.'

A vague inclination to pray made Cathy feel ridiculous. She had to pull herself together because everything was up to her! No, no, no, being melodramatic wasn't any help, calm it. Alicia wasn't yet two hours late, so where could she be? Had she called at her grandparents' place or a friend's house to get out of the dreadful weather? What was Cathy waiting for? She was just a few phone calls from knowing everything was as it should be.

'No, I haven't seen Alicia,' Ian's mother said, curtly. 'I'll get my husband to give her a lift if she pops round.' No 'how are you'? Just goodbye with a slam. But this wasn't the time for any of that...

'No, Mrs Randall.'

'Afraid not, Cathy.'

'Have you tried...?'

She'd tried them all. Not one of Alicia's friends had gone out or had an unexpected visitor. Wait! That creep Boden! Had he got in touch with Alicia to try to change her mind? His flat, uncaring tone brought bloody knives, raw meat, black bags to Cathy's mind. 'Thanks for your time, Mr Boden,' she said, shivering, fighting off an urge to accuse him of murder. What was going on? And where in the blazes was Davie? Though he wouldn't be with Alicia, he might know something. And Cathy needed some company, someone to tell her it was going to be fine. 'Get off that game, Davie!' she said through clenched teeth. 'Answer your phone!' Could you believe it? Right. Mr Woods. Where was his number?

'Sorry, Cathy, Davie left quite a while ago. Is something wrong?'

'I don't know where Alicia is and now Davie's gone missing. It's probably nothing. You can't help fretting.'

'I'll let you know if he turns up round here. Is there anything else I can do?'

'I don't think so.'

'Ok. Let me know when they get home.'

Such a nice man, and what a shame about his wife... Oh. My. God. It had ended too soon for her! No, that's leaping to conclusions. There must be someone... Ian! Had he invited them to tea without letting her know? She'd bloody well kill him if he was starting those games! Oh, how farcical would this get? Ian's phone was switched off! What now? Brother Dan!

'Ian's phone's dead.'

Thanks, Dan, what a way of putting it.

'Is it important?'

'I urgently need to speak to Ian. The kids are missing.'

'They'll turn up.'

'I'm sure you're right. I'd still like to speak to my husband.'

'I'll go and let him know. I'm picking up a kebab from the place round the corner, more or less.'

'That would be a great help.'

'Cheerio.'

'Yes, bye.'

But how could she be sure Dan wouldn't be in a bigger hurry to tuck into his fast food? An abrupt image of Alicia, unconscious in the back of a dark van, tormented Cathy. Time to involve the police...

'I keep thinking...' Her voice trailed away.

'What?'

Cathy stared ahead, down the rainy street. She didn't want to talk about it, after all.

'I'll tell you what often puzzles me. What happened to us? Our family?'

'And that's a criticism of me. One that I don't need right now, thanks.' Cathy accelerated, demonstrating she wanted to move it on.

'I was asking a question not pointing a finger.'

'We grew apart.'

'That's it?'

'Ian, we need to find the kids,' she said, her eyes flashing with vexation.

'And when we do,' Ian replied, 'they're in for it. They've given us the run-a-round for too long. I knew as soon as Alicia saw the reality of singing in the pubs and clubs she'd want to jump onto some other bandwagon.'

'Don't go on, Ian.'

'I'm talking about the things we should have addressed a long time back. What's Alicia's next big thing?'

'A portfolio for modelling,' Cathy said, sighing resignedly.

'And Davie? If it wasn't for this splitting up business, he'd have been over the high jump for that escapade with films and music. Piracy is a serious crime. The trouble he could have ended... Bloody hell!'

'What?' Cathy tersely demanded. What Ian called putting the world to rights, she interpreted as ranting, and it grated on her nerves.

'Liam Briggs, that's what.'

'What's that sorry soul got to do with anything? You ought to have seen him go starry-eyed over Alicia at some of her shows. And she wouldn't even speak to him.'

'That Davie shunned him was exactly the problem.'

'What problem?'

'Liam was menacing Davie to get his hands on the fortune he'd supposedly amassed through bootlegging.'

'How come I haven't heard about this?'

'I told Davie to let us know about it the moment Liam tried anything else on. I assumed, because he hadn't said anything, Liam had backed off.'

'You assumed? Charming. But what can Liam do? He isn't as bad as they say. He's a kid like our two.'

'He's big enough to do plenty. And we hope he isn't bad. Why don't we drive round to see his mother and that guy she's shacked up with and make out we think the kids are friends? If Liam's around, we can rule him out, unless he acts funny. Their house isn't five...'

'I know where they live. But we're barking up the wrong tree. What kind of world is it when we're suspecting - accusing - other people's kids of...? What are we accusing Liam of doing?'

'It's a world that's teaches our young people to value money and possessions above people. We're losing the most basic grasp of right and wrong and justice. Anything's possible.'

'Have you started going to church with your mother?'

'Don't be facetious. And think about it; it's all we were bothered about.'

'At least you said 'we'. But you still haven't said what we're supposed to be accusing Liam of doing?'

'We're not accusing him of anything. We're checking things out.'

'I suppose it's our only lead, however tenuous. But Chrissie Briggs and Pete need help. What with their health problems and the changes to their money - someone was talking about them at work the other day - people barging round there and dragging them into other problems...'

'I know they need help. And I feel sorry for Liam as much as the next person. But that sort of poverty is ugly; it doesn't necessarily create decent human beings, and yes, I know, his sisters aren't bad lasses. Whatever. Right now I'm concerned about the help our kids need more than anything.'

'We'll have to be careful. They'll probably be drunk and willing to fight if they hear something they don't like.'

'More importantly, they'll likely be too drunk to hide anything. Pick up on anything dodgy, and we contact the police. I'll do the talking. You can stay in the car if you don't feel like confronting them.'

'No,' said Cathy, indicating left. 'I'll do the talking. Me and Chrissie go way back. She was the brightest, friendliest girl in my class. It was often the clever ones who couldn't cope with the lack of opportunities. I've more chance of communicating with her than you have.'

Liam got to his feet and stretched, exposing, as his sweatshirt lifted, his belt buckle. For a split-second, the silvery skull prophesised utter doom. Then Davie twigged a basic necessity of living was gifting him his chance. 'I need a dump,' Liam announced, yawning.

'We'd hang flags and bunting out,' Alicia responded, her upper lip curling in disgust, 'only our hands are tied. At least we won't be expected to wipe your fat, spotty arse. Although it must be prettier than your face.'

'Think on what might happen to your mush.'

'Ah! It's about your jealousy because nobody wants to kiss you,' Alicia bravely retorted.

'Nobody wants to kiss me, hur, hur.' Liam's forced laughter didn't cover up his embarrassment or his inability to comeback.

Excellent, thought Davie, Alicia has her wits about her. The way she'd seemed entranced by the blank television screen had suggested that she was already critically damaged. She'd likely figured that when Liam walked out of the door, hope walked straight in.

Davie thought his heart would beat a hole in his chest. His brow squeezed out beads of sweat. Like an animal, would Liam sense his excitement? He stared calculatedly from brother to sister. Nooooo! It was over! He was going to check their restraints and discover Davie's deception! Hold on! Liam stepped towards the door. Yes! For now, they were safe. 'I forgot to mention,' Liam said, smirking, 'if you want to answer the call of nature, do it in your knickers or pants. It'll avoid all that messing with knots and cable, and I'm sure I can find a washing-peg for my nose.'

'So kind of you.' Davie scrunched his face, feigning revulsion. Laugh as much as you want, Liam, you clumsy amateur, my acting is better than your kidnapping! Leaving the door wide open doesn't mean that you're not napping! Davie and Alicia eagerly watched Liam walk down the hall and, near the front door that he'd dragged them through, turn into the toilet.

'Go on', Alicia whispered, 'do it!'

Davie counted to ten, allowing Liam enough time to unbuckle his belt, pull down his trousers and pants, and get seated. The goblin king was taking to his throne to produce a fitting soundtrack to the collapse of his kingdom... Or was he? Davie's face paled as he stared at his mobile's screen. 'I don't know the number of...' he practically blubbered.

'Three!' Alicia hissed. 'I looked when I knocked on the door.'

'You knocked?' Davie's jaw dropped.

'The message! Get on with it!'

'No. 3,' Davie mumbled, bemused, frantically typing, 'ground floor flat across from PO car park in town. Help!' He located Dad's number. Send. 'Done it,' he whispered, repressing an emotional desire to dance around the room, whoop-whooping. 'We're getting out of here!'

'Send it to Mum! Send it everywhere!'

'Genius!' Dad frequently mislaid his phone or left it switched off. How had Davie forgotten that? Multiple messages. Mum. Granddad. Eddie...

'What are you whispering about?' Liam bellowed over the flushing toilet. Far too late, bozo. The SOS was out there! Davie pocketed his mobile and hid his hands behind his back before Liam stepped into the hall, belting up. 'You'll regret trying anything funny,' he meanly promised, entering the room.

'I was asking Alicia if she's all right.'

'She hasn't had any of that,' Liam growled, pointing to the jug. 'And you haven't had any of this,' he added, making a fist. 'You're doing fantastic. Make sure it stays that way.'

'We intend to.' Davie could have kicked himself around the room! Once he'd sent the messages, why hadn't he snatched the jug and used it to prize the keys from Liam? Did he have the bottle to throw it? Liam was crazy enough to call his bluff. Perhaps this was the smarter way. When help arrived Davie could dash for the jug and strip some paint off the wall. It wouldn't be long before things happened.

Their tormentor glanced at the jug and rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

The dull ring at the other end of the line sounded crushingly forlorn to Ian's ears. An incomparably bleak sound. 'Nope, they haven't got back home. We've got to do this.' As he put the phone on the dash a message arrived. 'Fingers-crossed Big Dave isn't about or else we're a few streets away from hell. Through his rose-tinted spectacles everybody is out to victimise Liam.'

'And who can blame him for being defensive? David works all the hours God sends and spends the rest of his time trying to hold that family together. I can't help thinking we're cooking up a complicated, nasty mess that's going to bog us down rather than help anybody.'

'You've said it yourself; it's the only lead we've got.'

'Are you going to read the message?'

'I thought it might be private.' If the night's events weren't bad enough, Ian couldn't face an introduction to his wife's love life on top of them. An attractive woman like Cathy had too many admirers to stay single for long. 'You'd better pull over and read it.'

'You've just been using the phone, you foolish man,' Cathy responded caustically, reading her husband's thoughts. 'There are only the kids and that's the way it's staying. Read the message, please.'

Ian huffed and grabbed the phone. Only an idiot would need to be told that the green monster should be locked in his dungeon in these circumstances. He'd never got it right with his wife. 'How do I access...? Oh, like so... Hell's bells! A message from Davie! Turn the car around!'

'What does it say?'

Ian excitedly read the message aloud and Cathy swung round into the immediate right turn. They jolted and mounted the kerb - whoa! - quickly screeched away from a brick wall, bumped down onto and straightened up on the clear, wet road. 'What else does it say?'

'Nothing. Get your foot to the floor. I'll phone the police.'

'If anything's happened to them, I'll be the one up before a judge.'

'Hello. You've had a report about two missing teenagers...'

Liam paced the room, repeatedly punching his right hand as if a palmist had read of a bleak future that he had to obliterate. 'What shall I do with you?' he eventually asked. 'You've nothing to offer. Is it fair to make the trouble you're going to cause me seem worthwhile? Should I slice you up and leave your useless carcasses to rot? That's what they'd do in those films you sold, eh, Davie?'

Davie said nothing. Liam could only spin out his fast-fading power by stirring up the deepest fears. In a very perilous sense, it didn't matter that someone was coming to the rescue - Liam couldn't stay cooped up indefinitely - he had to make a decision, and he was damned whichever way he went with it. This knowledge had smoked out the cornered, fang-baring beast that lurks somewhere in us all. 'Of all the shits I've met you're the worst, the most useless, the... Gah!' He was working himself up, preparing to do something. Like taking revenge before he had call for it. Davie nervously glanced at Alicia. She stared at the jug as if it had a mind capable of atrocious schemes. How would Liam react when he heard someone at the door? Believing he'd give up required a nature so optimistic it would kill you sooner rather than later. Until someone forced their way in, Liam indisputably had a hand to play; should it include jokers like Batman's nemesis, he might still have some cruel, last laugh. Getting out was no use if, in the process, Alicia received a makeover like the victim of a mad super-villain's last stand.

Davie's phone vibrated in his pocket for the third time since he'd sent the texts. Out there, the people they loved and who loved them were frantically moving, and that meant the jug needed taking out of the equation sooner than now... Thud, thud, thud - the door! Boom, boom, boom, Davie's heart echoed, leaping to his mouth and then plunging through his body like it ignominiously intended escaping via the other orifice. But, the kid told himself, it was the time for courage.

'Not a word,' Liam said, putting a finger to his lips. He betrayed his tension by ducking down beside the armchair as if his unknown caller had x-ray vision and could see through the walls. He caught Alicia's disparaging gaze and self-consciously scowled, standing up, clenching his fists. 'They'll go away,' he said manfully, articulating his wishful thinking. Thud, thud, thud. Alicia indicated with a jerk of her head that Davie should make a move. And do what? Shouldn't he wait until Liam answered the door so they'd got him from the front and the back? Thud, thud, thud. Bang, bang, bang. They'd started kicking! Who was it? Dad? Mum? Granddad? Davie gulped; Liam had the will and the power to overwhelm Mum and Granddad. He could drag them into his lair! Davie's look of admiring gratitude for Alicia's lifesaving idea to send multiple messages was met with an unsisterly glower that demanded to know why he remained on his arse.

'Who is it at this time?' Liam's glazed eyes blazed at Davie. 'What have you done?'

'Go answer it,' Davie replied, somehow composed. 'Complain that they've knocked you up.'

'You what?' Liam's fists tightened, his knuckles whitening. 'Who is it?'

'How do I know? I don't live here.'

'You might die here if you've been up to your tricks.'

'With our hands tied behind our backs?'

'We're in here!' Alicia impulsively yelled. 'Get us out!'

'Shut it!' Liam roared, wild with confusion.

'It's over, douchebag!' Davie bounced to his feet, pulling his mobile from his pocket. Liam was stunned - Davie found the time to connect with his mother's phone and scream, 'We're inside!' And then Liam lunged, grabbed Davie's phone, and smashed it against the wall. The falling battery took down the figures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Vader. In blind rage Liam swung at Davie who nimbly jumped over Alicia's legs to the far side of the sofa. It passed through his mind to leap through the window, feet first, and then he remembered... Too late. Liam flung the contents of the jug in Alicia's face. A hushed second of shock tremored by and then she screamed like her soul was on fire. Liam hurled the empty jug at Davie, who dived under its trajectory. It shattered on the wall as Davie's elbows hit the carpet in front of the television. 'I'm burning!' Alicia shrieked. 'I'm burning!' Davie scrambled to his feet and over to his sister, expecting a barrage of blows. To his surprise, he dragged Alicia to her feet unimpeded. He spun her round and frenziedly pulled at the knots. Liam must have collected cable from all over the flat. She'd been bound four times over; her wrists were swollen and red. Her screams were tearing Davie's heart out. Struggling with the first knot, he looked over Alicia's shoulder and examined her face. It was dripping wet, but her flesh wasn't yet dissolving to raw wounds. Her eyes were open! 'What colour are the curtains?'

'Brown!' she cried. 'They're brown!'

She could see! And the first knot was undone! Starting on the second knot, Davie looked over his shoulder. Down the hall, Liam was unlocking the door that shook with the pounding from the other side. He wrenched it wide open as Ian Randall took a flying kick. His momentum carried him over the threshold to a bruising crash-landing. Liam had hopped to one side. Sneering, he looked down, 'Nice of you to drop in.' One hammer-like blow knocked Ian clean out. Stepping over him, Liam looked one way and then... 'Arrggh! I can't see! I can't see!' Cathy had thrust forked fingers into his eyes. He stumbled out onto the grassy verge, his hands over his eyes. Cathy stepped over her prostrate husband into the flat.

Davie was dragging Alicia out of the living room, her feet still bound together. 'Into the bathroom! That door, Mum! Open it!' Cathy kicked the door open onto a tiny, grotty, stinky bathroom. A shower was affixed to the brown, tiled wall above the bath taps. His hands under her arms, Davie lifted Alicia over the side of the bath and turned the shower on. 'Wash it off your face!' Sobbing Alicia turned into the spray, shivering. The water began to steam and Davie reached out, adjusting the control. Acid was hot enough. 'Phone an ambulance, Mum! He's thrown acid in her face!'

'One's already on the way.' Cathy squeezed between Davie and the side of the bath. 'My poor baby,' she cried, 'they're coming to help you.'

'I think the shower's washing it off! My eyes don't hurt. Is my face burnt? Is it burnt?'

Cathy peered into her daughter's despairing, red eyes and shook her head, unable to speak because of the choking lump of love in her throat. Alicia again turned into the spray, huddling into her drenched coat as if it could still provide warmth.

Davie left the bathroom. Dad was dazedly leaning on the frame of the open front door. 'You ok, Dad?'

'It's you kids we're worried about,' Ian grimaced, rubbing his jaw.

Davie put his arms round him and they hugged until Dad's legs almost gave way. His son had to help him outside into the cold air.

Several occupants of the neighbouring flats were stood in their doorways or leaning over the balcony of the floor above, watching Mr Woods and Eddie pin a struggling Liam to the muddy, grassy verge. The wind and the rain swirled round them. The Woods's neighbour, a scrawny, bald man with a goatee beard, observed the commotion from the safety of his white van, parked up against the kerb. A wailing, flashing police car sharply braked to a standstill behind it. Two officers leapt out as another car pulled over from the opposite direction. Granddad!

As the aging man got out of his motor, Cathy, wet through - as if she'd stepped in and out of the shower fully clothed - came to the doorstep, anxiously looking around. On recognising her father-in-law, she shouted, 'Open the back doors! Alicia needs casualty!' Led by the hand, a dripping Alicia, her legs finally unbound, quickly followed her mother out of the flat. To Davie's apprehensive eyes his sister didn't appear to be disfigured...

Never! Oh no! The police had got it wrong! The Woods were in handcuffs and Liam had shot across the road. He staggered over the far kerb, regained his balance, and fled down the pavement. Obviously still half-blinded, his arms were outstretched, zombie-style. 'He's the one!' Davie shouted, letting go of Dad and running over to the police. The teenager pointed at Liam as he escaped up the street towards the castle ruins. 'Follow him!'

'Calm it, son,' said one of the constables, officiously.

Unbelievable! Davie looked round with his head in his hands. Granddad was back in the driver's seat. Mum was climbing in the back to join Alicia.

'You'll have to stay here,' one of the policemen sternly called out, 'we need...'

Cathy slammed the door and Granddad sped off.

Grimly staring after the vehicle, the policeman reported over his radio that suspects were getting away by car, registration... 'It wasn't them or them!' Davie shouted, the hard rain freezing his face. 'You let the criminal escape!'

'That's usually about the measure of it,' said muddy-cheeked Mr Woods, sourly. 'Are you going to get these bloody cuffs off us?'

'We have some questions to ask, sir.'

'I told you it wasn't them!'

'What do you know about this, son?'

'More than you.'

Another wailing, flashing squad car whizzed round the corner a few hundred yards away, beyond the bus station. Granddad had just taken the opposite left, and was out of sight.

'Never mind, kid,' said Mr Woods. 'They'll work it out eventually.'

'Work what out?' The lawman breathed into Mr Wood's face.

'You let the real...'

'Quiet, Davie.'

Davie felt Dad's hand on his shoulder.

'Me and my wife phoned you about the abduction of our kids. Mr Woods, here, and his son, Eddie, were restraining the culprit.'

The penny dropped. Both policemen awkwardly stepped back as their colleagues from the newly arrived squad car paced over. A paunchy, middle aged constable with a fuzzy moustache and a young, blond female with a big zit.

'At least Davie seems to be in one piece,' Ian said, hostilely. 'Let's hope we can say the same for his sister.'

Davie shivered. His tracksuit was saturated. He realised everybody was getting as wet as Alicia. And he was exhausted.
Chapter Thirteen

'Thanks for the ride, Josh. See you tomorrow.' Ian Randall clambered out of a red Mazda with a dented wing on the passenger side. He closed the door, stuck up a thumb, and the motor pulled away as Ian turned away. It was a harsh, clear blue afternoon in mid-December - the type that can make you ache to the bone, especially if black ice catches you unawares. Yet that wasn't why, just fifty or so steps from his front door, Ian dropped his sports bag and checked his denim jacket was buttoned up to his neck. He turned its collar up. Josh's rush to pick up his missus meant Ian hadn't had time to change out of the green and white uniform that seemed specifically designed to cut him out and down as a Toytown nobody. Whether or not that was a cynical fancy, Ian felt like someone else as soon as he pulled on the garb, and the 'new me' wasn't to his liking. He'd be buggered if he wanted a neighbour glancing out of a window and thinking he was proudly showing off his new station in life. What a price to pay for part-time hours working tills and stacking shelves! The phrase 'supermarket chain' had taken on a new and punitive meaning as far as Ian was concerned.

The drizzly Monday morning that he had started, Ian picked up on his fellow workers' low morale. A pear-shaped grandma with 'Jess' on her badge had shown him round because management had cancelled the official induction session until the middle of next week. Jess had a tight-lipped, suspicious nature - the sort that thought any new face threatened her job. She uneasily waddled two paces in front of Ian from the stores, up and down the aisles, to the tills, so that he was left to interpret everything he saw and heard without company spin. It's a job, he'd said to himself over and over again, trying to kid himself that it didn't matter that he had more to offer. It had always been the same.

When he and his silent, reluctant guide stood observing the tills, it became sickeningly apparent that someone somewhere was laughing and he was the butt of their joke. Ten of the fifteen tills were staffed and, at each one, a constant supply of people filled their bags before swiping plastic or handing over notes. The supermarket was a goldmine, and he was doomed to a pay-slip that confirmed he'd be skint as long as he worked at it. His interviewer had smilingly implied that he was expected to be grateful for the opportunity to get out of bed to realise the dreams of those who laughed the loudest; but how could any sane man or woman feel any such gratitude? The world was bent and mad, precisely as the books he'd borrowed from Johnny Jacks alleged it to be.

Equally as depressingly, among his fellow workers Ian only heard - whenever management wasn't around - the same old lame chatter about TV and sporting heroes and villains, and the same old hopeless boasting about superhuman drinking feats. Hadn't he once been full of it? An urge to scream profanities antagonistically gripped him - he had to take a walk to the staff toilets to burn it off. While he was unzipping, a skinny, pasty, spotty lad called Al from the bakery rushed in. A cubicle's door slammed behind him. The gross violence of retching corrupted the smell of disinfectant. Al, for one, had had a real wild night and he was suffering. Ian finished dribbling, shook it, zipped up, and lathered soap in his hands under the hot tap. For a second, he inspected his domed reflection in the big bubble in his right palm. And then he jabbed it with a finger and burst it. Having rinsed the soap away, he stuck his hands under the drier, which roared hot air over Al's final convulsions. The bog flushed. Yup, no doubt about it, Ian had had enough of that brand of escapism. It helped you to dig a hole in the muck and not a tunnel to... Is the world a trap? As if a man like him comes and goes as freely as a blind man who can't figure he's stuck in revolving doors between the ground floor and the street.

At the end of his third shift, Ian set out to find the union rep. Hurrying up and down the aisles of shoppers and brand names, he wondered whether he was simply on his way to exchanging delusions. Almost everybody who claimed to have an idea ended up promising miracles before turning out like a sparkless magician you'd be embarrassed to hire for a kids' party. There again, if a stuffed rabbit clumsily pulled from an old hat was the worse he could expect, then he'd be better off than he was conforming to a fantasy lifestyle that restricted him to a bit part, contrary to everything the advertisements and packaging seductively pledged. Life as we know it had been so commoditised you should be able to take it back and say, 'Look, this product isn't good enough. I want a replacement'.

Ian turned a corner of Coca-Cola crates stacked shoulder-high and, ah yes, stocky, cropped silvery hair, a boxer's flat nose. 'You Mick Greaves?'

'Depends who's asking.' The man's pale blue eyes didn't flicker from the loaves of Hovis his chunky, rough hands were quickly transferring from baskets on a pallet to the shelves. The sleeves of his green and white uniform were rolled up: on one arm, a blurry tattoo tiger bared its teeth; on the other arm, a faded love heart pierced by an arrow was dedicated, in a scroll, to Sarah and Mick. 'Trying to set up a lottery syndicate? You can call me anything you want as long as you count me out.'

'I'm interested in joining the union.'

'Now there's a thing.' Dropping a loaf back into a near empty basket, Mick slowly raised his head. Ian was surprised that their eyes were on a level when the muscular man drew to his full height. 'Half the workforce is willing to support each other,' he said, resting his left hand on the handle of the trolley under the pallet of loaves. 'The rest are too badly educated to know what standing together in a union has achieved for working people in the past. How does that grab you?'

'Maybe I can persuade a few to jump on board.' Ian felt a tad disappointed that he hadn't been treated to a blood and thunder speech that could only ever fail to live up to its glib promises. That's too much TV baloney for you, he silently conjectured. 'Do you need qualifications to work out you're being robbed?'

'You fancy you've the gift of the gab?'

'Who knows what I've the gift of?'

'You'll need something special to convince the worst of this lot that immigration isn't the root of all evil. Scared and simple people want simple answers and easier solutions. It's preferable if hitting it with a stick or a baseball bat puts it right. Don't get me wrong, plenty of the guys and gals have the right spirit and, now you've been warned you're fighting a barrage of tabloid headlines, I'll happily get you a form. For now, watch your back.' Mick grinned forcibly over Ian's shoulder. 'Ah, young Mr Cruickshank,' the union man said, impishly, 'I've missed your critical gaze, helpful as it is. I hope you haven't set a bad example by throwing a sickie.'

'And I hope, Mr Greaves, you're not going to stand about talking all day.'

Cruickshank was a forty-something beanpole who looked down on you from more than a physical height. Meet him at work and it became exceptionally difficult to imagine him in anything other than his unfashionably starchy white shirt and company tie, symbols of both his power and his impotency. Wherever Ian had worked he had encountered men like Cruickshank; they so unthinkingly, fervently stuck to the rules that they came to embody the book, surrendering their personality to an officious stereotype behind which lurked something you couldn't put your finger on and yet knew wasn't quite right. Such men were promoted once, maybe twice in their lives. They used their slightly elevated position to bludgeon everybody beneath them with their sense of personal injustice at never reaching the lucrative peaks. Cruickshank adjusted his tortoiseshell specs on the bridge of his nose and delivered, what Ian suspected, was his blunt, charmless slogan: 'Things need doing.'

'I'm aware of that, Mr Cruickshank. How could I ever forget? I'm also exercising one of my rights. Our new colleague wants to know about the, ahem, what do you call it?'

'The Dinosaurs' Smoky Room Club,' said Cruickshank, impatiently.

'Tut, dinosaurs are extinct and I'm very much alive. And don't you know smoking is banned in public places these days? You're not the one living in the past, are you?'

'Excuse me if I die of laughter.' The manager looked Ian over like an experienced undertaker estimating measurements for a coffin. 'And what are you supposed to be doing, Mr Randall?' Cruickshank triumphantly glanced at Mick. 'Perhaps we're heading for another round of written warnings.'

'As it happens,' Ian started before Mick could respond, 'it's time for me to go home. Pleased to meet you, Mr Cruickshank.'

'Don't be late tomorrow.' Cruickshank ignored Ian's outstretched hand and marched in the direction of the fruit and veg displays. 'Hey Diane! They're not on special offer!'

'I'm right in assuming you've got a short-term contract?' Mick's eyes followed Cruickshank's warpath. 'Then watch out for him. He doesn't seem to know much, but he's worked out that the world is run by those upstairs for the benefit of those upstairs. He'll kick your minimum wage ass as a way of kissing their butts.'

'Get me the form,' Ian replied, taking the first step towards the exit and home. 'I've more important things to care about than him. Catch you later.'

That some had implied - while vilifying wicked Liam, of course - that Alicia and Davie's ordeal had somehow helped them to grow up was as pointed as any lesson Ian or Cathy had ever received that much of what is said has the insightful clarity of a spilled bowl of alphabet spaghetti. One of Alicia's college lecturers had stood behind Cathy in the queue at the bank; he'd tapped on her shoulder and said hello, sorry to hear about those despicable shenanigans, 'But...' - his tone became softer, a whisper, and he leaned forward, searching Cathy's face through thick, round glasses, his hands in the pockets of his navy blazer - 'if Alicia's sudden progress continues, well, she's every chance of making a model student. How about that? Just goes to show that you never know.' He winked, annoyingly.

'I'm sure she'll be overjoyed to hear that.' Cathy ground her teeth, thankful that a cashier saved her temper from a further test by calling out:

'Next?'

The fear of upsetting Alicia had prevented Cathy lambasting Carol, one of her oldest friends, when she'd called over one evening. Carol had paid Alicia a glowing compliment for volunteering to do the dishes before concluding, 'Terrible things can make you think about what's important. And I can think of someone who needed to do some thinking.'

'And I can think of someone who shouldn't do any thinking at all,' piped up Davie, puckishly.

'You're not wrong there.' A dark smile swept across Cathy's lips and her eyes glittered like the hardest of diamonds.

'I was just saying,' said Carol. 'Maybe things are a little tense round here at the moment for visitors.'

'Yes. Perhaps I'd best show you to the door before someone says something they'll regret.'

Carol's bitchy attitude hadn't entirely surprised Cathy, though she was stunned when Grandma June jumped on the bandwagon bound for Idiotsville. 'I'm glad something's got that nonsense out of her head,' Grandma remarked on hearing Alicia hadn't uttered a word of complaint when the photo shoot for her portfolio was postponed until further notice. 'It's about time we returned to good old-fashioned values for the sexes.' The old lass's righteous vigour was such that Ian expected a proposal to send his daughter to a nunnery. 'We could do with bringing back...'

'Serfdom and slavery,' Granddad sarcastically butt in. 'The foundations of the good old days in all their misery, eh?'

'I'll go and get some drinks.' It had dawned on Cathy that much of Grandma's ire was aimed at her, and a family confrontation was precisely what wasn't needed.

'Who's he trying to fool?' Cathy replied one evening, after Ian related his brief conversation over the garden fence with the usually hot-tempered nit-picker who lived next door. Amongst other things, Mr James wanted it known that he believed the kids had done the community an inestimable favour by exposing the dangerous reprobate in its midst, and, when all's said and done, they'd bounced back better than ever, hadn't they? 'Alicia's like a little girl again. She won't go out on an evening, and she can't sleep with the light switched off. Have you noticed how Davie checks the doors are locked before he goes to bed?'

'And he makes sure I always know where he is by sending a text. The cantankerous goat is probably celebrating because Alicia doesn't play her music as loud and as often. I stopped Davie kicking a football against his fence ages back.'

'I often catch Alicia staring into space. Heaven knows what's going on in her mind, but it isn't anything to do with this maturity that people who should know better claim to have picked up on. And I preferred her as a jumped-up teenager - she was at least acting her age then. Don't get me wrong; it's great that the kids have stopped bickering and seem to have realised life's too short to spend it haranguing the people you love, but this goody-two shoes persona is a result of Alicia becoming scared of people, so much so, she daren't even risk offending us. That's why she's running round the house like a maid. I'm no less worried about that night's consequences than I was when we brought them home from the hospital.'

The kids had slumped into a sofa apiece, and their dad apprehensively told himself that fatigue was to be expected. He remained a touch groggy from Liam's punch though the doc had said he looked fine after shining a light into his eyes. Knowing Cathy would welcome a drop to numb the edge of the night's stress, Ian poured the remains of a bottle of red plonk into two glasses on the coffee table. As he tipped back his drink and tasted bitter, dry fruits, he observed that Alicia, who Cathy had quickly helped into her night clothes, looked unnaturally pale, tensely clinging to a cushion. At first, Ian likened her to a toddler with a comfort blanket and then, for some reason, it came to him that the cushion somehow represented reality to Alicia and she was terrified of losing her grip on it. Or was his sluggish, tired head tripping over itself? He'd certainly exhausted its vocabulary of heartfelt, consolatory words; what else was left to say? And what about Davie? At least he wasn't crazily babbling like he'd done at the hospital. Maybe it'd be an idea to get the kids talking now they were in the familiar, secure atmosphere of home. They'd get whatever they needed to off their chests and he and Cathy would pick up on any problems that needing dealing with. 'Liam should be thankful that Grandma hasn't got her hands on him,' Ian offered with artificial brightness, and instantly regretting his line of approach. Persevering nonetheless, he asked: 'What do you two think?'

Nothing they could or were willing to put words to.

'Granddad should be getting home very soon.' Ian pictured his pa speeding through the streets to return to his wife and let her know their grandkids were safe. The wind had dropped; the old fellow should have safely navigated the roads. 'All's well that ends well,' Ian started again, 'and we're all fighting fit to face another day. The first day of the rest of our lives.' Jesus, that cheap wine on top of the knock to his jaw made his head ache.

'And here's something to build up your strength,' added Cathy with similarly affected cheer, carrying a tray containing two small plates of sandwiches cut into triangles and two hot chocolates. 'It's nice and sweet, just how you like it. Take a plate, Davie, and then I can pass the tray to your sister.'

'I can't believe we let him terrorise us,' Davie repeated yet again, 'and it was a jug of water.' He put his plate on his lap, grabbed a beef paste sandwich and wolfed it down. Alicia took a plate and rested it on the sofa's arm. She nibbled at a sandwich's crust like a timid mouse wary of poisoned cheese. 'Come on, Alicia, we were starving in there.'

'Davie, leave your sister alone.' Cathy sat beside her daughter and protectively put her arm around her. 'She's shocked. And it's a good thing it was water.' Cathy's anger mounted. 'I can't believe you didn't contact me or your father as soon as you heard that little monster had abducted your sister.'

'I...' How could you answer that? 'He's not little he's a great brute.'

'I'll vouch for that.' Ian rubbed his jaw as Alicia whimpered into her hot chocolate.

'All the more reason for you to have warned someone else.'

'Best leave him be, too, Cathy.' Ian ruffled his son's mop of hair with one hand and then, with the other, passed Cathy her glass of plonk. 'Liam is the one in the wrong. They've both been through it.'

'And for that reason I was wondering if you'd sleep on the sofa tonight. I'm sure they'll feel better to have you around.'

'I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'll have to phone Dan about Sherlock. My dog,' he explained, catching Cathy's puzzlement.

'Yay!' Davie exclaimed. 'Dad's staying!'

Alicia looked up with a wan smile. But a smile nonetheless.

Some sound of movement in the kitchen woke Ian. What's that pup up to? He rubbed his eyes, remembered where he was and why, and slipped from under the quilt. Yawning, he pulled on his jeans and sweatshirt, which he'd left neatly folded on the floor. Outside, day had broken; light crept into the room under the curtains. In silky pink pyjamas, her blond hair tied back, Cathy had started to put together a breakfast of bacon, poached eggs, hash browns, fried mushrooms and beans. Only Davie had really eaten when they'd returned way past midnight and the aroma and sizzle of bacon under the grill alerted Ian to his considerable hunger. 'I need that,' he said through another wide yawn.

'The way things are going we'll soon be lucky to get rations of toast for breakfast.'

'Want any help?' Ian pensively sucked his teeth. Opening the blinds, he peered over the rooftops into grey like a vast smudge. 'And we have to talk about all of that. Our drifting along, refusing to face up to things, hasn't helped anybody.'

'I've put spread on the bread. You can get out knives and forks and make coffee.' Cathy crouched to open the oven and turn over the hash browns. 'For the moment, I'm grateful it's Saturday. The kids have some time to get over what's happened before I phone work, college and school and stir up a few more rumours about our lives.'

'People will be sympathetic when they hear about it.'

'As long as they don't hear about it today. Silence sometimes beats sympathy hands down.'

'You know, I care less and less about what people think of me. The best policy is to switch off to loose talk.' Ian filled and switched on the electric kettle. Reaching for the coffee jar, he raised his brow as he read its slogan. Wake up and smell the coffee? Hadn't they experienced something far more pungent? And not just the incident with Liam.

Alicia tentatively followed her equally bleary-eyed brother down the stairs and into the kitchen. 'That mine?' Davie asked, looking at a plateful of stomach-rumbling grub on a tray while stretching.

'Good morning to you, too, and, well, Alicia only has one hash brown. I must say I'm pleased that you both seem to have had a good night's rest. How are you feeling?'

'Cool,' Davie shrugged. He picked up his breakfast tray, stepped round his pale sister and made his way to the seldom used dining-room.

'You can take it easy today, babe. How does that sound?' Cathy slid a poached egg onto the plate on her daughter's tray. 'Can you manage that?'

'I suppose.' Taking the tray, Alicia slouched in the direction her brother had taken.

'We can't expect her to be celebrating,' Cathy explained, acknowledging her husband's frown.

'I know that. What's the world coming to?'

'There have always been villains and ugliness. We've got to make sure our daughter and son don't get caught up again.'

'Easier said than done. At least Davie seems relatively unscathed.'

'Can you take the ketchup and knives and forks on your tray? And don't be so sure he isn't putting a brave face on it. Keep it light in there.'

Ian's jovial attempt to initiate conversation fell awkwardly flat, and the occasional chink of cutlery on a plate exacerbated the room's tension.

Alicia was the first to put down her knife and fork. 'She didn't have any tea yesterday,' Davie commented, pointing out what everybody knew when his sister just stared into her plateful. 'Don't worry about it, Alicia - Liam won't dare try it on again.'

'That's right, son,' agreed Ian, confidently.

'I'm sure of it, too, babe.'

Silence.

With her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her hands, Alicia dolefully waited for everyone to finish and then got up to clear the table.

'There's no need to do that, babe.'

Alicia continued as if she hadn't heard.

'I'll do it, love.'

'Alicia can do it if she likes. Keeping busy will keep her mind off that rotten business, which is,' Ian hastened to add with an excruciatingly forced smile, 'behind us.'

Around midday, two police officers knocked at the door to further their inquiries. A soft-spoken sergeant with a squint and a trim black beard asked the majority of the questions. His colleague - an athletic-looking brunette with rosy cheeks and big, sparkling green eyes - listened attentively, offering support whenever Alicia was overwhelmed. Though it was straightforward enough, the interview progressed slowly and Davie couldn't sit still. 'He thought I was making a fortune when I was actually producing a few copies for friends,' he said, too insistently and without being prompted. He nervously picked his nails at Alicia's outbreak of coughing. 'Sis, have you got something stuck in your throat?'

'I need a drink,' she said, nodding, reaching for her cup of sugary tea.

'He must have thought Alicia was selling out Wembley arena, too,' Davie elaborated, putting his hands between his knees. 'What a dummy.'

'The important thing is that you and your sister haven't come to any harm.' Ian gazed sternly at his son before putting his empty cup on the coffee table. 'And that we stick to the truth.'

'Davie was trying to sell copies of films he'd downloaded before I stopped him.' Cathy gave her husband a glance like a sharp poke. Her input caused her son to stare at the floor, his face the colour of a spanked bum. 'He wasn't brought up to break the law.'

'You're saying money was Liam's motive?'

The officers intently watched the family. They avoided eye contact.

'It looks that way,' Cathy said, eventually, looking up.

'And how much money was Davie making to attract Liam's attention?'

'Nothing,' Davie blurted. 'It was in his head like he thought Alicia was getting rich by singing in pubs.'

'And she was making what?' The sergeant's eyes searched Cathy's stony expression.

'More trouble than it was worth. She's quit singing.'

'We're dealing with some incompetent criminal, then.' The sergeant looked knowingly into his colleague's bright eyes. 'No change there with Mr Liam Briggs.'

'Have you pulled him in?'

'So far, Mr Randall, he's evaded us.'

And that's the way it had stayed. Over a fortnight had elapsed since Liam had last been seen, blindly stumbling - after Cathy had thrust her forked fingers into his eyes - down the rainy, windy street towards the castle ruins. According to Grandma, it was as if the ghosts said to haunt the ancient site had justly imprisoned him in the spirit world's dimension of its dank, mouldy dungeons. In spite of the danger Liam had put Alicia and Davie in, on a quiet evening that soothed the raw wounds of their tribulation, Ian and Cathy reflected, with almost as much compassion as malice, that the disturbed young man was more likely trapped in a far more earthy kind of purgatory. In other words, Liam was sleeping rough and scavenging on the streets of some unknown town or city. Yet rumours soon circulated that made them shun even remotely charitable thoughts. There was so much smoke concerning Liam's 'activities', not least of all those involving drugs, he'd clearly torched the bridge back to human decency. And wherever he was, he'd be up to anything but something good.

'Alicia is haunted by the idea that he's out for revenge,' Cathy informed her husband one night rain pattered against the window like fingers trying to feel their way in.

'What his family might do concerns me. There are some wild cards and loose cannons along with the more reasonable clan members.'

He didn't have to wait very long before one of the Briggs family's main men revealed his thoughts. The next day, Ian was alone with a book he couldn't focus on when he heard a vehicle with a throaty engine pulling over. Getting up from the sofa, he peered through a gap he made in the curtains. Shit. Big Dave Briggs - the hulking bricklayer-cum-bouncer - emerged from a blue transit and stood under the street lamp, squinting at the front door, checking he'd the right number. Fearing that his number was up if he opened up, Ian ignored the first light knocks, no, Big Dave, you won't catch me out like a pig in a straw house. The knocking grew a touch louder. And louder again. Until he got what he came for, Dave was going nowhere. With that in mind, wasn't it better to find out what he wanted before Cathy, the kids and Sherlock arrived home? On tenterhooks Ian went through to the hall, putting the door on the chain. Through a draughty crack, he lied, 'I'd drifted off on the sofa. How are you, Dave?'

'Better when I know your young uns are fine. And when you accept my apology. I know words aren't much, but they're all I can offer.'

'Yes, well...' Ian felt cowardly and stupid. Recalling Cathy's narrative about Big Dave's efforts to keep his troubled family together, Ian realised that his visitor hadn't come to knock anyone senseless, and that he had to be faced man to man. Removing the chain, Ian opened up. 'We'll talk in private. Come in.'

'I can't begin to think what was going through Liam's mind,' Dave said, contritely, stepping over the threshold. 'I knew he had it in him to do something appalling; what can you do? I tried to guide him, obviously very badly. How are your kids?'

'They're survivors, I think.'

'You don't know how glad I am to hear it.' Big Dave presented a huge mitt, callused and scarred from his work outdoors and on the doors. Out of his rugged, dark, clean-shaven face, Dave's soft brown eyes seemed to gleam with integrity. He looked nothing like bulldog Liam. What would warring with his family achieve? The worse case scenario had been avoided. Ian shook Dave's hand.

'Can I have a word with your wife and kids?'

'Cathy's taken Alicia and Davie to their grandparents.'

'Right, fine.' Dave actually looked relieved. 'Let them know Liam's in for it when...' He cleared his throat. 'He'll be arrested. It's out of my hands even if some of it's my fault. I've always told him that he had to go out and grab what he wanted because the world never gives lads like him a chance. He wasn't supposed to interpret my advice as a green light to anything goes as long as it falls short of murder. And I should have seen something coming. His attitude hardened when they messed about with his mother's money and she threw him out. Sleeping at our Eric's likely made everything worse \- his bloody cousin's no role model. But I'll guarantee that Liam will cause your two no more problems if I'm anything to do with it.'

'That's...' What? No real assurance. 'No sign of him?'

'Not a word.'

'You must be concerned.'

'It's not the best position to be in.'

There wasn't much else they could say. Dave edged to the door. 'I'm getting in the way, so I best be going. The whole family's extremely sorry, and it's been good seeing you to let you know that.'

'Thanks for letting us know. It means a lot.'

Opening the curtains wide, Ian watched Dave's van motor down the street. His reason and emotions contrasted virulently, turbulently, and he seemed stretched out on some spiritual rack between heaven and hell. And then he comprehended you can sometimes choose to put either on earth, and his family had to try to put everything behind them. Or at least remember the future is before them.

Ian slotted his key in the front door's lock. Rather than turn it, he turned around, surveying the familiar red-brick facades of the terraced houses across the street. They reminded him of dusty grey, retired Mr and Mrs Peters; Alec and Janet Burroughs and their teenage lads who made a racket revving beat up field bikes; Derek and Lisa Bell, their son on a tour of duty, their daughter married with one on the way; the young, hard-faced couple with an untidy, squawking brood of three or four; Lee James the unemployed bricklayer and his missus, Pauline Jones, who worked part-time hours in the fish and chip shop. Regular lives on a regular street. Sherlock's yapping and scratching on the other side of the door that Ian knew best caused him to take a deep breath of the keen winter air, and turn again. No doubt about it, he'd come home.

He and his wife were far from a traditional couple all over again; perhaps they were more like brother and sister, but no, Ian checked himself, that wasn't it. Once you shed conventional roles, how do you say what you are let alone in relation to another? He and Cathy certainly weren't lovers, they were more than friends, and platonic embarrassingly reminded him of a statue not far from the holiday hotel in Greece where the entire family did nothing but squabble through a heat wave that surprised even the veteran hotel manager with its blazing ferocity. Two things were clear enough; life had forced him and Cathy to change since those days and, after their unwanted adventure searching the streets, they communicated on a new level. Why did it take disaster - or at least the threat of it \- to bring people together?

It had seemed wise for Ian to stay around and sleep on the sofa until the kids settled and something like normality was restored. Cathy couldn't afford any more time off work and someone had to watch over Alicia and Davie for a few days until they felt ready to brave the world. The staff at college and school agreed to keep an eye on the kids and, as far as anyone could tell, things had gone reasonably well, all things considered, when they'd returned to the classroom. Alicia was somewhat withdrawn, Davie was a touch too loud, but there were no great scenes of distress to fuel the lurid stories that had inevitably gone round. As the days passed, and as a nervy equilibrium came to the house, Ian felt more and more like a guest who'd outstayed his welcome, even if he was free to do as he pleased in the place that belonged to him as much as anyone. Significantly, he missed Sherlock and worried about the effect his absence was having on the pup. 'I think I'll put together my few things and be on the way in an hour or so,' he said, early one evening after a tea of bangers and mash with onion gravy. 'I'll call Dan. He should be around to give me a lift. The roads are a bit icy, but he'll be happy to get Sherlock off his hands.'

'Go sit down in the room and hang fire.' Cathy wiped her soapy hands on the dangling half of the T-towel that Ian was using to dry the last plate. 'Let me make sure the kids are busy with their homework.'

'I don't like the sound of this,' Ian quipped. 'Any broken electrical appliances or cigarette burns in the carpet are nothing to do with me.'

'You know we've things to discuss,' Cathy replied briskly. 'And there's no time like the present. We can't avoid things forever.'

She stepped through to the hall to access the stairs. Ian stuffed the T-towel in the half-loaded washer and scratched his head.

'Straight to the point,' she said, sweeping into the room a few moments later, 'you need to move back in again.'

'You what?' For a second, Ian thought he'd concussed himself by falling off the sofa. 'Carry on as if nothing has happened? That's pushing it too far.'

'I didn't say that, and I wouldn't make such a suggestion without knowing something had changed.' Cathy sank to the sofa across the room so she wasn't towering over her seated husband. 'We need to think about what's most important.'

'And that is?'

'The kids need the pair of us around and not just because of this frightening episode with Liam. They're at a crucial stage in their education and development; they need stability.'

'Me moving back in isn't the best way to provide that.'

'Do you realise that, as parents, we've come close to messing everything up?'

'My point exactly. And who's to blame for that?'

'It isn't about the blame game. It's about avoiding further damage.'

Ian's laugh sounded edgy and hollow rather than conveyed the intended ridicule. His wife stared coolly at him.

'Getting back together would lead to more rows and more pain.' Ian rose to his feet. 'I can't do it, Cathy. I'd better phone a taxi so I can get out right now.' As he had on the night when Alicia and Davie went missing, Ian caught sight of their photos mounted on the wall. Memories of their progress from infants to teens plucked his heart strings. No, wait: staying together for the kids? The classic, crazy mistake of millions of gloomy marriages! Wasn't he now in a position to... Do what? The truth - nothing - didn't hurt, but his next question had the power to tear him to pieces. Did he love Cathy? How did she feel about him? Reeling over to the window, he ripped the curtains wide, and stared out into the dark, icy evening. What did he expect to find out there? In here, once upon a time, hadn't the warmth and light of love filled his heart? Yet the grief caused by Cathy's betrayal with that fucking factory boss resurfaced. Anger surged through Ian. His blood boiling, he rocked on his heels. What did he want to say?

Long seconds passed.

'Everything will have to be different...' The words unconsciously came out, as if he had drifted into a dream that refused to die. Fuck. What had he said? He jolted awake. Could he go back on such big words? Easy. He could do anything. It was his life. His heart. Ian spun round to his wife who was stood with her arms crossed, an inscrutable yet tender expression on her beautiful face. Their eyes met, and Ian's simmering malevolence cooled. Someone was there. Who?

'How long have you been thinking about this?'

'I dismissed the idea the night we drove around searching for the kids. But it kept on coming back, making more and more sense. The time when they'll be young adults isn't far away. We'll have the option of selling the house and going our separate ways. In the meantime, we share responsibilities and financial problems. We need to work together because everything else is working against us.'

'Cathy, isn't this madness?'

'We've the craziest of jobs to complete. Once we get them through university...'

'You're planning on sending them to more debt?'

'It'll be their decision. What else is out there for them?'

A blind intimation of defeat came to Ian. He sensed that life wanted to crush Cathy, Alicia and Davie.

'I suppose you'd better call the kids and let them know.'

This will never work, Ian thought, as Cathy left the room, unless he learned to arrest the venom that pulsed through him whenever he considered Cathy's infidelity. And then he wondered if his wife needed to smother her emotions. Could they survive by suppressing their deepest thoughts and feelings? It was too late to go back. Cathy led Alicia and Davie into the room. 'I haven't seen whatever's missing,' Davie protested.

'Nothing's missing, cheeky,' Cathy replied. 'We've an announcement to make.'

Part dubious, part expectant, Alicia and Davie looked from one parent to the other.

'Dad's moving back in. For the time being he'll continue to sleep on the...'

'The best news ever!' Davie rushed to hug Dad. He held out an arm, coaxing, welcoming his daughter to the embrace. She buried her face in her father's shoulder. In contrast to Davie's intense, warm squeeze, Alicia felt flimsy and lifeless. Many things needed time.

'There's one condition to this,' Ian stated, smiling down at his boy and girl, 'and he's called Sherlock.'

'Let's all go pick him up,' Cathy said, wiping away her single tear.

Some pressing concerns were slightly alleviated when Ian got a part-time job in the supermarket and, more notably, considering the peanuts he was paid, got rid of his motor. 'You know what, Davie?' he said, stuffing a roll of notes into his jeans as the buyer drove off. 'I can't say I feel sad to see it go. It isn't like I'm losing the limb that I always believed a motor to be.'

'Are you kidding yourself or me, Dad?' Lifts on demand had been Davie's kind of thing.

'Shanks's pony has its merits.' Ian patted his slender midriff. 'Come on, let's move it. I'm getting cold out here.'

Though the heating was off, Davie noted that he couldn't see his breath. Hoping that it didn't get any colder, he vanished up the stairs. Ian went into the front room. He nodded and his wife marked a cross on a document and put it in a pink ring binder file that Alicia no longer used. Its front cover featured Disney characters playing jazzy musical instruments. 'Plenty more to bite the dust,' Cathy said, summarily.

'It won't be long before Dan's house is ready to go on the market. And the quicker we get done and it's sold, the sooner I'll be paid for helping to spruce it up.'

'The day can't come soon enough.'

Their combined wages weren't combating the cost of living and, because they'd vowed to stay clear of credit as much as possible, life had a feeling like packing explosives into a homemade time bomb. Not essentially different to when they'd gone wild with the never-never. It was hard to see how you could win, despite the politicians' boasts on TV of an imminent recovery. Their statistics meant nothing, except they were always slyly trying to erase your actual experience from your memory. Ian's growing conviction that boom had always been for one kind of person while bust was for many others certainly helped to explain why the world got more unfair.

Ian and Cathy agreed that cutting back too austerely could make their family unbearably suffer. They all got one chance at life and they had to live no matter what kind of blasts, crashes or earthquakes shook and devastated the world beyond their control. Deliberately depriving themselves would create their own tremor of misery that, once and for all, wrecked the family's foundations. It would then cost far more than paper notes to deal with damage beyond repair.

'The closer you get to having nothing, the clearer it becomes that money isn't everything, but without it...'

'...You can't do a thing.'

The 'real' world that Ian had once believed in with all the assured bluster of a man of that world - and therefore 'reality' - looked more and more like the set of a B-movie that had the significant particulars wrong. As absurd as igloos in Africa. Why had he fallen for it? Because he didn't otherwise know what reality was and everybody needs a story that explains why things are as they are. Hadn't the papers and TV news bulletins peddled a narrative as if it was a secular gospel that, after all, turned out to be as rooted in superstition as any religion? Invisible hands and invisible deities, pah! Ian was learning to live on his senses, reorienting, changing his perspective; it was no longer acceptable to live grudgingly by the myth that whoever has money somehow has the deepest understanding of what's best, so let them get on with it.

Christmas drew ever closer. One evening, Ian realised that Cathy was intensely studying his face as he read his book's final chapter. He looked up. 'What is it?'

'These will raise some funds,' she replied softly, keeping her eyes fixed on him as she spread two gold necklaces and two gold rings over the coffee table.

A diamond in one of the rings sparkled and winked, and though Ian knew it was a trick of the light, he scowled, envisioning the bogus, romantic pomp of the man who had presented the jewellery to his wife.

'Believe you me,' she said, 'I'll be as pleased as you when they're gone. I...'

Ian refused to \- couldn't - listen to another word. Drained of colour, he shakily got up, shambling out of the room like a man who'd suddenly put years on. It was exactly then that Cathy understood her husband's love for her was as strong as ever. Taken aback, she had to sit down. Not for the first time, she searched inside herself for her former affection. Even though her old feelings were truly dead, she smiled through her tears - through his forgiveness and gritty readiness to stand by his family, she had found a great respect for Ian that he had never previously commanded. Who knew what else might grow and blossom? If she had acted artlessly and others in her position would have secretly sold the jewellery, Cathy's heart glowed with an ironic gladness: didn't her honesty symbolically severe the link with the most recent, cheating past?

For the next two days they didn't speak unless the kids were around, and even then their curt, thorny words betrayed their strain. On Saturday morning, Cathy rose early, washed, dressed, and, without breakfasting or an explanation, got in her car and drove off. When Alicia came into the room with a plate of toast and honey, she informed Dad that Mum had sent a text saying she'd gone into Leeds. She waited for him to lift his eyes from the weather forecast on Mum's laptop. 'Why is she shopping?' the girl asked. 'I thought she was knocking unnecessary spending on the head.'

'It'll be for a bit of something she can't get locally.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know,' Ian answered irritably, throwing his arms in the air. 'Look, love, I'm going to walk Sherlock.' He rested the laptop on the coffee table and stood up. 'You going to be ok?'

'Davie's upstairs. Are things going back to how they were?'

The question stopped Ian in his tracks. 'No, they're not,' he replied, reaching out and gently squeezing his daughter's shoulder.

Cathy returned as the murky winter's day faded into night. 'Crack open this red wine,' she said like she meant business, pulling a bottle from her bag. 'We're celebrating.'

'Oh?' Ian reached into a kitchen cupboard for two glasses. His relief at her return consumed him - he couldn't draw out that silent treatment game for the world. 'In the name of what?'

'A profitable good riddance to bad rubbish. Over one thousand pounds, and I let them steal the deal at that.'

Cathy hadn't sunk her first glass of wine before she was listing some of her designer labels on E-bay. 'They've gone in no time,' she announced cheerfully, wrapping up the last parcel several days later. 'I'm happier in jeans these days,' she added when she looked up into her husband's puzzled face. 'And I'm about to list several pairs of shoes and my laptop itself. I'll make do with one of Davie's reconditioned models.'

'Now there's an idea. List mine as well. And let's cancel satellite TV. It's nothing but repeats, low-budget cheese and biased news - we're literally paying for propaganda.' And anyway, Ian was happier with his head in a book these days. Dickens, Hardy, Stoker; he'd picked up several nineteenth-century novels in a charity shop in town, starting on Dracula when everybody else went to bed the previous night. A few chapters in, he said to Sherlock, who was nestled beside him on the sofa, 'There's more than one kind of bloodsucker in this world and, from now on, they're going to find it more difficult to get at my veins.' And it was along such lines that he and Cathy next decided to go through the house and list anything unessential and saleable. 'It's a pity these unscrupulous bastards who rig prices for electricity, gas, housing, petrol and food can't be flogged. They'll charge us ordinary citizens for the air we breathe before they're finished...'

'Dad, you're ranting,' Alicia interrupted, 'and I don't like it.'

'I'm sorry, kid, but the likes of me and your mum have worked all our lives and, before we know it, we'll have nothing to show for it. In the twenty-first century we shouldn't consider ourselves lucky because our lungs are cleaner than those of Victorian coalminers.'

'It's always ordinary folk that pay,' Cathy said, distantly. 'That's what my old dad used to say.'

'Nothing changes - your old man was too right! The wives of casino bankers won't be selling their best clothes. And these expenses fiddling politicians respond by manipulating the situation to cheat ordinary folk and ruin any service that...'

'Didn't we spend the money that got us into debt, Dad?'

'Davie, we were fooled. Sold a lifestyle that had no future and... Don't make me lose my thread!'

'Ok, Dad.' Davie grinned at Alicia and Mum when Dad paced over to the mantelpiece, shaking his head. 'Whatever you say, Dad.'

'Our problems are symptoms of the bigger problem not the cause of it. We're cutting back because - what do you know? - we were never paid enough in the first place. It doesn't bloody matter how they go on about two point nine per cent GDP, IMF forecasts and the rest! Consider the world's latest insanity! People are supposed to rest their weary heads in a home not be driven to blowing their brains out because of housing bubbles!'

'Ian, that's enough. Any more talk like that and Alicia won't be able to sleep tonight. We've heard someplace or other about the terrible state of the world, thank you. Going on in front of our kids won't solve anything. But while we're on the subject of houses, Dan phoned earlier.'

'I've spoken to him. I'm going round tomorrow night to help decorate one of the bedrooms. It'll soon be up for some luckless, hopeful souls to chain themselves to...'

Dan's decision to sell up had been made for him by the sporadic, unreliable nature of the work that was coming his way. He'd be asking more than four times than that he'd paid for the property, and though he was positive he wasn't illiterate when it came to money matters, he found it flummoxing that some average punter would expect to cover such a mortgage and enjoy life when the average wage in the area was so inadequate. It's too easy to see why things don't add up, he said, before confessing he felt lucky to be jumping off the mortgage merry-go-round because his missus had a roof over her head to share. Ah, thought Ian - dipping his brush in the creamy, pink paint - an audience! 'The system isn't set up for the likes of you and me. It's set up against us. If we get a good deal, it's a pure fluke.' He swished his brush on the wall, thickly daubing fresh paint over the horrible crimson that had roused the suspicion, when he first saw it, that biker Dan had converted to Satanism. 'You see the writing is nearly always on the wall for us and they just cover it up like we're doing. Everything's constantly whitewashed. Do you hear these politicians and corporate men trying to blind us with the 'science' of economics? The bottom line is they can't break with the cycle of boom and bust, but what comes and goes around for them is completely different from what comes and goes around for people like us.'

'And what are we 'hiding' with our paint?'

'The fact that this ex-council house isn't worth such a huge sum of money. And it was built to provide an affordable home.'

'The market...'

'... has something wrong with it if having a roof over your head costs...'

'Ok, ok. I get it. So shut it.' Dan couldn't stand the stale smell of boring politics, which his brother reeked of these days. Radical or middle of the road, Dan had no time for anything that doesn't do what it says on the tin. 'I'm going to finish off the landing. A length of skirting needs glossing.'

He hadn't been out there one minute when Ian switched on the radio, tuning into a station that churned out the sugary pop music his brother detested. 'What the hell do you call that?' Dan yelled. 'That stuff turns people's brains to mush. The music industry is a joke these days, I'll tell you. Anybody with a mind of their own who knows what to do with a real instrument, bah, they can forget it! They're going nowhere. Disposable puppets are flaunted before the gullible public for easy dough.'

'You don't say, you old headbanger?'

'I do say. Play something half-decent or turn it off!'

'How about the news?'

'Quit that sniggering. I hear enough news from you.'

'Peace out,' Ian grinned, pulling the plug.

'That saved your life.'

'Made any more progress on your life's dream?'

'It's blazing into action before you know it.' Dan stuck his head round the door. 'Since I've had it in the garage at Jane's place, I've worked on it every day, more or less.'

'How is Jane? It was great finally meeting her.'

'She's rocking. But the bike, yeah, another wad coming my way shortly. Don't I need it.'

'So, it's the end of your dream? I suppose Jane reckons you'll make a better domestic angel than you will a Hell's Angel?'

'Don't push your luck, sunshine.'

'Well, you were a blessing letting me stay here for such a time.'

'I've only one brother. And it's as well.'

As soon as the door opened, Sherlock placed his paws on Ian's shins as if to push him back out. The pup's tail wagged frantically and his soft brown eyes gazed up with thrilled yearning, doubly reflecting his master's image in miniature as he crouched down. 'Ok, little buddy,' Ian said, petting Sherlock, 'we'll be walking when I've had a coffee and got out of these dumb clothes.' Drawing upright, Ian kicked off his shoes and in odd socks - one black, one blue - walked across the hall and through to the kitchen. Sherlock followed. Ian unbuttoned his denim jacket and rummaged in its inside pockets. Producing his slim wallet, he put it and his key on the work top. Bar the kitchen clock's faint ticking, a hush had fallen over the house. Cathy was at work and the kids were at school and college. Bless them. Since that day he'd been made redundant, hadn't they all rode out a tough, emotional journey? Even after its challenges and soul-searching, they'd travelled nowhere so much as a few steps in the general direction they might once and should have taken.

The more Ian had considered it, the more he'd seen that they'd lost their way because, over time, when the kids had left infancy behind, it had become less and less clear what they were working towards other than an image of flash, heroic ladder-climbers - the dream of classlessness peddled from every official outlet and which, like most dreams, had just tenuous, twisted links with reality. How the plant's harsh economics and Cathy's nightmare romance had made them open their eyes! Life had become a maze of wrong turns with spotlighted, slick welcome signs and sensational, irresistible mirages - all credit cards accepted - that stirred such reckless, selfish desires that the family's heart and soul was ravished along with everything else. Is it possible to recover from that? One thing was certain; whether they'd learned lessons too late and too painfully or whether they'd dig deep and unearth the resilience to adapt and develop stronger bonds, they had no option but to keep on stumbling ahead into the weeks, months, maybe years, trying, somehow, to find a more navigable, prosperous path. It was impossible to name their destination let alone know if they'd ever arrive, but, perhaps, Ian thought, no one ever arrives in life because the point of life is the journey. If that is the case, his and Cathy's rediscovery of a too often forgotten, age-old wisdom might put them in good stead for the remainder of their passage. People - and not possessions - make a family home and define where you're from and, if not where you're heading, how you should conduct your attempt to get there.

The crazy thing was that the goods they'd coveted when they'd wed had been supposed to make life easier, more comfortable, and then, when the credit the banks threw around had allowed them to own such luxuries, they'd actually come to resemble instruments of destruction and bondage, not least because of the bloody repayments. It was undeniable: much of the problem stemmed from their confusion of dreams and reality, and from what they'd chosen to believe despite the contrary voices of their better judgement constantly nagging away at the backs of their minds.

That the world was rushing into a permanently sparkling future in which swaggering around shopping malls - rather than reading your moral compass - indicated you were on the right tracks was a most incredibly enchanting delusion. The more other people appeared to be bedazzled and blinded by advertisements' fake promises and intimidations, the more terrifying the idea of being left behind, and so, like everybody else, they'd abandoned themselves to the mad race for instant gratification and dubiously-earned status. In the process, they'd neglected to coolly look up and spot the obvious con and the desert ahead. It shouldn't have taken any great insight to pinpoint danger. Just a quick, thoughtful inspection of their pay-slips would have told them that nothing added up unless they were meant to be excluded from the free for all or they were bang on course to crash...

When all was said and done, they'd only just dazedly climbed out of the wreckage, dusted themselves down, nursed their wounds, and picked out a way to go about life that had no signposts and, doubtless, more pitfalls than ever. Ian understood the world was a lonelier place for his family because so many people were still pushing and being pushed in the same lunatic direction that had been to their utter detriment. And those who run things couldn't or wouldn't envision any other way. Maybe, if everything went wrong, the members of the Randall family would make it without each other, though it was far more probable that one or two or all of them would fall by the wayside. They only had one another and that meant trying to stick it out together come what may...

The flat ring of the phone dragged Ian from his reverie. Another cold-caller? Maybe he'd better take it in the event something vaguely meaningful was involved. He stepped over Sherlock and went through to the living room to pick up the receiver. 'Hello... Johnny! How are you keeping? It's good to hear from you... I'm getting along in my own way... Yes, I've got your books. I can get them to you... You want people to go where? I'll have to think about it - I've never seen myself doing anything like that...' But then, the problem with that argument was almost everything he had seen himself as being and doing had turned out to be other identities and causes that didn't suit the wearer.
