‘Tell her yerself,’ said Peggy and, placing two fingers into her mouth, she sent out a piercing whistle to Eric. He didn’t look her way and she knew it was deliberate. She waved her hands furiously to attract his attention.

‘Wave your tits at him,’ said Paddy. ‘That’ll make him look up.’

Peggy ignored him. ‘I’ll just have to wait until he finishes gassing and gets closer; Maggie definitely saw me.’ Eric would take five minutes to drink the tea and he never dawdled for longer. ‘Look at that, he’s giving her a ciggie again. That must be their little arrangement, a ciggie for a cuppa,’ Peggy tutted. ‘I wonder who they are gassing about.’ In Peggy’s world, it was always who, not what.

Eric drank his tea and appeared to be in no hurry. ‘Get a move on, will you,’ she hissed. Peggy couldn’t see the look of dismay that crossed Eric’s face as he eventually took his leave of Mrs Trott and made his way along the street, depositing bottles of milk on each doorstep. He was getting closer and closer and, as he did so, his determination to keep his gaze fixed pointedly downwards, ignoring Peggy, became more obvious.

‘Eric!’ she hissed. ‘Eric, up here,’ as if he didn’t know.

The brass bed frame creaked behind her. ‘You’re wasting your time. That tight bastard won’t give you nowt,’ said Paddy, heaving himself up the bed and reaching down to pick up his cigarettes and matches from the floorboards. He stuffed a ticking pillow, brown with old sweat and Brylcreem, down behind his back and slapped on the cap which had been hanging on the bedpost above his head.

‘Me back’s killing me. I’ve hardly slept a wink,’ he said, doubting that there would be any sympathy from Peggy, but it was imperative he imparted the information. He was laying out his stall for the day. ‘Ouch, Jesus, I can hardly move.’ He lit his Woodbine and, flicking the match, dropped it onto the floor to join the pile of dead ones already there.

Peggy tried to attract Eric’s attention yet again; he was now only two doors away. ‘Eric!’ she hissed. ‘Feck, Annie O’Prey will be off to mass if he doesn’t hurry up and she’ll see me. I swear to God he’s walking slower than usual.’ The sound of clinking bottles landing on steps marked Eric’s progress until he was almost under the window. ‘Eric,’ Peggy hissed again, but he was stubbornly refusing to look up.