‘Oi, come here, deaf lugs!’ The woman was older than she’d appeared at first. Her hair was bleached yellow and pinned up in folds and she wore fishnet stockings with long black boots and a white PVC raincoat which was open and revealed a black dress beneath. She was far too old for the clothes that she wore. She glared at Peggy. ‘There’s only one reason any woman comes down here when it’s getting dark,’ she said before Peggy had reached her, ‘so don’t think I don’t know what it is you’re up to. The nerve of you, me and Stella come down here early to get a bit of business from the new ship and a cheeky old slapper like you comes along and thinks she can take our patch? What’s your name and where the hell are you from, up there?’ The woman nodded her head up to the streets and, taking out her cigarettes, lit one. ‘You wait here until Stella gets back, she’s got a bit of business herself on the Morry. Thought you could take us on in a pair of auld slippers, did you? Or did you just forget to get dressed. Drunk, are yer?’

Peggy could now see that her eyeliner was smudged and that the woman had a faint bruise on the side of her cheek. She took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘Drunken housewife looking for drunken sailor who won’t be fussy about what he’s paying for, is it? Fancy yourself good enough for the game, did you? You’ve got nice hair, I’ll give you that.’ The woman laughed out loud, but the smile disappeared from her face as quickly as it came. She stepped forwards and, with her free hand, jabbed Peggy in the shoulder with her long painted fingernail, making Peggy step backwards and almost stumble.

‘The friggin’ state of you. Jesus, the likes of you give us a bad name and that’s saying something.’ As she exhaled the smoke into Peggy’s face, she stared hard. ‘I said, what’s your name?’

Peggy’s mouth felt dry and the pain in her belly was weighing her to the spot. All she wanted, all she needed, was the water’s edge. She was trapped in a living hell where, minute by minute, everything got worse. The water, the lapping, it was calling her name, Peggy… Peggy… Up it slapped and down it fell, calling her to a dark peacefulness. That was where she had to reach, where the pain, the confusion, the hopeless despair, would all end. The lightness in her head made her dizzy.

‘P-p-peggy,’ she stammered.