His smile faded. He reached a hand into his crisp packet and found it empty.

A tunnel closed in around him, and he was all swallowed up by the dark.

* * *

Frankie Cowan chewed slowly and suspiciously, sniffed the bowl he was holding, then offered it across the kitchen table to where his nephew was scraping some black bits off his toast.

“Here. Taste that,” he instructed.

Paco’s eyes crept to the bowl of cereal that had been slid in his direction.

“Why?”

Frankie’s hand twitched, sloshing the cereal around in the bowl. “Just fucking taste it.”

“I don’t want to,” Paco protested. He knew better than to disobey, though, so he took the spoon, scooped up the measliest helping he could, and shoved it into his mouth.

“That milk taste off to you?” Frankie asked.

Paco grimaced. He managed to hold the cereal in a sort of bowl shape he’d made with his tongue long enough to utter, “Yes,” then he got up, spat it into the bin, and spent the next few moments dry heaving over the kitchen sink.

“Fuck’s sake,” Frankie spat. “Budge! Budge! Where are ye, ye big fuckin’—?”

Budge appeared in the kitchen doorway, damp and bare-chested. He had a towel around his waist that just about made it all the way, and clenched it with a fist to stop it from falling to the floor.

“When did you get this milk? Yesterday?”

Budge nodded.

“Did ye check the fuckin’ date on it?”

Budge shook his head.

“Fuck’s sake, man! What do I always tell ye?” He clicked his fingers and pointed at his nephew’s back. “Paco.”

“‘Check the dates,’” Paco replied between retches.

“Check the fuckin’ dates,” Frankie parroted. He slapped the back of one hand into the opposite palm. “Every time. These pricks they’ve got working in the shops these days don’t know how to fuckin’ rotate stock. I mean, it’s no’ exactly difficult to pick a thing up, look at the date on that thing, and then work out how long there is left until that date, is it? You don’t have to be… what’s his name? Him in the wheelchair with the fuckin’ robot voice.”

“Stephen Hawking,” Paco wheezed.

“You don’t have to be fuckin’ Stephen Hawking to do that, do you?”

Budge shook his head again.

Frankie snatched his spoon back from where Paco had set it down, then rattled it hard against the edge of the table four or five times like a Viking banging a war drum.

“Right, well, someone’s gonnae have to run to the shop,” he said. An arm spasmed, throwing the spoon to the floor. Nobody passed comment. “Because I’m no’ going anywhere the day until I’ve had my fuckin’ Coco Pops.”