“Bugger low fat,” said Arthur Banks. “I’ll have the special and chips. Just make sure there’s no bloody chop suey or sweet and sour sauce gone anywhere near it.” Banks winked at his mother and walked over to the shop.

The strip of shops across the main road, set back by a stretch of tarmac for customer parking, had gone through dozens of changes over the years. When Banks first moved to the estate, he remembered, there had been the fish and chips shop, a ladies’ hairdresser, a butcher’s, a greengrocer’s and a launderette. Now there was a video-rental shop, a take-away pizza and tandoori place called Caesar’s Taj Mahal, a minimart and a unisex hair salon. The only constants were the fish and chips shop, which now also sold take-away Chinese food, and the newsagent’s, which, according to the signs, was still run by the Walkers, who had taken over from Donald Bradford all those years ago, in 1966. Banks wondered what had become of Bradford. He was said to have been devastated over what had happened to Graham. Had the local police ever followed up on him?

Banks waited to cross the busy road. To the left of the shops stood the remains of the old ball-bearing factory, still untouched for some reason. It could hardly be for historical preservation, as it was a real eyesore. The gates were chained and padlocked shut, and it was surrounded by high wire-mesh fencing with barbed wire on top, the windows beyond covered by rusty grilles. Despite these security precautions, most of the windows were broken anyway, and the front of the blackened brick building was covered in colorful graffiti. Banks remembered when the place was in full production, lorries coming and going, the factory whistle blowing and crowds of workers waiting at the bus stop. A lot of them were young women, or girls scarcely out of school—a rough lot, his mother called them—and Banks often used to time his visits to the shops to coincide with the factory gates opening because he lusted after some of the girls.

There was one girl in particular, he remembered, who used to stand at the bus stop smoking, a faraway look in her eyes, scarf done up like a turban on her head. Even her serviceable work clothes couldn’t disguise the curves, and she had pale smooth skin and looked a bit like Julie Christie in Billy Liar. When Banks used to walk as casually as possible past the bus stop, he remembered as he stood in the fish and chips shop queue, the other girls used to tease him with lewd comments and make him blush.

“Hey, Mandy,” one of them would call out. “Here comes that lad again. I think he fancies you.”

They would all howl with laughter, Mandy would tell them to shut up and Banks would blush. Once, Mandy tousled his hair and gave him a cigarette. He smoked it over a week, taking a few drags at a time, then nicking it to save for later. In the end it tasted like something he might have picked up from the gutter, but he finished it anyway. After that, Mandy would sometimes smile when he passed by. She had a nice smile. Sometimes strands of hair escaped from under her turban and curled over her cheek, and other times she might have a smudge of oil or dirt on her face. She must have been about eighteen. Four years age difference. Far from an impossible gap when you get older, but wider than the Grand Canyon at that age.