Her head began to swim. Was she thinking too hard? Or was it the second vodka chaser or maybe the fifth pint? She pressed her forehead to the cold glass and frowned at her reflection. Seven years since graduating, only just back in the black after paying off her massive student debts, and here she was, contemplating another loan to put herself through teacher training. All so she could stand in front of a class of fourteen-year-olds, desperate to share her passion for the past, when they were only interested in the future. She giggled. She must be mad.

Just short of the parade of shops on the edge of town, the cabbie made an unexpected stop. He nodded to a police car blocking the road. ‘I’ll have to take a detour.’

Lou looked out at the crowd of boys milling around behind blue and white police tape tied to lampposts. ‘Fine,’ she said and slumped back in her seat.

After paying the cabbie, Lou stumbled up the path and into the house. She kicked off her trainers, dumped her bag in the hall and tripped over the Christmas tree and a box of decorations at the bottom of the stairs. How many times had she told Mum not to go up that rickety old loft ladder on her own? One of these days, she was going to fall and break her bloody leg.

‘Hey, Mum,’ she called, ‘there’s a police car blocking the road at the parade. Do you reckon someone held up the chippy? Was it assault and battery? Get it? A salt and batter-y? Did you get me that pie?’ She grabbed a strand of silver tinsel from the box and wrapped it around her neck, making a twinkling boa. She giggled and was still giggling when she fell into two police officers in hi-vis jackets, standing in the living room. Dean was on his knees in the middle of the room with Stephen and a female police officer standing over him.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Dean sobbed. ‘I want my mum. Get me my mum!’

2

17 December 2013

It was only three o’clock, but the day had already turned to night. The iron-cold December air, heavy with the threat of snow, had so far managed nothing more than a bitter wind pricked with ice.

Through the window of Iceworld, Lou watched a flurry of empty crisp packets and burger cartons tumble down one of the deserted “boulevards” and swirl in a mini-cyclone around the drained fountain in the open-air, central courtyard. In the fortnight she had been away, another three shops had closed their doors for the final time; shutters down, fly-posted, graffitied. Now, Hill House Shopping Arcade – or The Arc as the single-storey 1960s shopping precinct was known to the locals – was reduced to a handful of going concerns – Iceworld, a Polish grocer, a halal butchers, two pound shops and Kwality Klobber, a clothes shop selling two pairs of jeggings for four quid. Only those locals who couldn’t afford the bus fare to the out-of-town shopping centre still shopped here. Just as only those that couldn’t afford to move away stayed put in town. Poverty, not loyalty, connected The Arc’s remaining customers.