‘I am,’ he said, ‘I’m like a new man, whiskey in the tea and an Embassy filter instead of a roll-up, don’t be…’ He stopped. He was about to say, ‘Don’t be telling our Gladys,’ when he realised that he couldn’t care less if Cindy did. ‘Are you going anywhere nice tonight?’ he asked, keen to keep the focus away from himself. Cindy placed a pink lustre, cut-glass ashtray on the arm of the two chairs between them and laughed as she blew smoke into the air. ‘Eh, you, that’s my line, not yours.’ She nudged his arm and the tea slopped over his cup into the saucer.

‘You can drink that out of the saucer,’ she said.

Lifting it to his lips with one hand, he said, ‘Waste not want not,’ and slurped the overspill.

Cindy sat back in her chair. ‘I say that to every customer, you know, to get the conversation going, as if that was ever a problem around here. I reckon I know everyone’s life story.’ Eric raised his eyebrows over the rim of his cup. ‘Oh yes, I do. All the ins and outs, the trials and tribulations. The women who get the backhanders, the black eyes and the backstreet abortions. They sit in that chair there and tell me. I brush away as many tears as I do clumps of hair from the floor.’ She nodded towards the chair in front of the mirror and then, turning to Eric, said, ‘And do you know what? I will take every word of it to my grave.’

It was Eric’s turn to smile. ‘Thanks for the tea, Cindy, but I’m all right. I think I’m just tired.’

‘Or you just need a laugh. As it happens, me and our Reg, we always go to the Anchor on a Wednesday night and many other nights; never see you in there though, Eric. Why don’t you come and join us tonight? I promise you’ll have a laugh.’ She deliberately didn’t mention Gladys. ‘Go on, why don’t you come down? We’d love to see you, so come and have a drink with me and Reg.’ She pushed the point because she could see, instead of Eric waving it away, the thought had landed on a perch in his mind.

Cindy was an expert in communicating and said no more. She slipped her cigarettes into her front pocket as the bell jangled and the door opened.

‘Biddy, love, I haven’t seen you for ages, I thought you must have deserted me.’

‘I’m in need of a perm, Cindy, but I haven’t time for that right now so can you fit me in for a cut and can I book in a perm before the carnival? Oh, hello, Eric, do you come here to get your hair cut then?’