She put the bread under the grill, and her hands shook. From a decade of cobwebs and dyed glass she felt old leaf-like hands reach out and brush her.

The shop was bare, the books packed in boxes or sent away.

Denise was crying softly and fuzzily.

‘Come on, come on,’ said Jonquil. ‘Have some more wine.’

They sat drinking, perched on the wonky stools, as outside the non-customers, now excluded for ever, stalked past on the wet, dark pavement.

‘Do you remember that old lady who kept coming in for Roald Dahl, saying he was a woman?’ sobbed Denise.

‘What about that man who kept buying copies of Fight the Good Fight by Angela Truebridge?’

‘And the Angela Carter fiend?’

‘And that girl who never knew the author?’

They nodded reminiscently.

‘It’s been a funny old job,’ said Denise, and blew her nose. ‘I start at the Co-op next Monday, just till Christmas. Keith’s furious. He’ll have to get his own breakfast.’

‘Lazy sod,’ said Jonquil, ‘do him good.’

‘But he’ll make such a mess,’ wailed Denise. ‘And he never washes up.’

‘You want to get shot of him.’

‘Well, I met this really lovely bloke on the bus last week. I see him every night.’

‘Out of the frying pan,’ said Jonquil. ‘You never learn.’

‘What are you going to do, Rachaela?’

‘I haven’t decided yet.’

‘If you want to come up to Manchester,’ said Jonquil, ‘just drop me a line. You can doss on one of the girls’ floors till you find somewhere.’

Outside two young men peered in at the lighted women with their bottles and Jonquil’s cans of Carlsberg. They leered and made signs until Jonquil strode towards the door.

‘Rubbish,’ said Jonquil, as they fled. ‘There ought to be some sort of dustbin for them.’

‘I’ll have to go,’ said Rachaela, slipping down from her stool. ‘I have to get Ruth’s meal. I told her I’d be late but it’s already seven.’

‘Yes, OK, Raech. You whizz off.’

Denise embraced Rachaela, wetting her with fresh tears. ‘Drop in at the Co-op. I’ll get you a discount.’

Jonquil shook Rachaela’s hand. Her pale grey eyes were resigned. ‘If ever you’re Manchester way, look us up.’

They saw her off into the splashed black and rainy yellow night.

Spears of light, long aprons of neon reflected in the pavements. Beyond the block of shops the street-lamps spread like broken egg in the puddles.

The rain was dense, trying to turn to snow. The wind flurried.

Lit windows in the flats, the houses made into fiats. How often she had passed them, in rain and shine, on the summer evenings in the dust and diesel, on the white snow where every step portended a snapped ankle.

Already one or two trees with garlands of coloured bulbs. There in that blue window the same old ‘Merry Xmas’ which appeared doggedly year after year.