She climbed out of bed. She was wearing the pink baby-doll nightdress he liked, with the frilly panties. Her sagging breasts showed dark-nippled through the nylon, and her thighs were creased with fat.

‘I don’t want you wrecked,’ she said, and she really meant it. ‘Who cares about a few bowls of taramasalata?’

Nicolas held her wrist, and kissed her on the forehead. ‘The day I let some bum walk in off the street and tear my store to pieces without lifting so much as one finger to stop him – that’s the day I’m going to be laid out in my coffin. You got me?’

She bit her lip.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and opened the door to go downstairs.

It was then, right then, that the front window of their own store was smashed in. It was so loud and violent that Nicolas said, ‘Hah’ in involuntary shock. Dolores crossed herself, and whispered ‘Mother of God.’

Nicolas was angry now. He could hear people shouting downstairs as they clambered into his store through the broken window. Looters, in his store, trampling over his displays and his counters, and helping themselves to all the things he had worked for years to buy. Helping themselves to the cans and the bottles and the home-cooked pastries. Destroying his life and his livelihood.

The .38 police revolver was on top of the wardrobe. Nicolas stalked over, reached up for it, and brought it down. Dolores said, ‘Nicky – for God’s sake – leave them—’

‘Leave them?’ he asked her. His mouth was tight and he had that bitter, hard, sorrowful look in his eyes, the same look he always had when they were robbed or ripped off. ‘In this country, you have to fight for what’s yours. You understand me?’

He pushed his way down the landing to the stairs which led to the store. Dolores came after, trying to pull his sleeve, but he shook her loose with one impatient twist. He knocked askew a picture of fishing boats off the island of Serifos. Blue skies, bleached boats.

Dolores said, ‘No, Nicky, please.’

Nicky, halfway down the stairs, turned and looked back at her. The revolver was raised awkwardly in his left hand. From downstairs, there was another splintering crack as the looters broke into his refrigerated display cabinet, and someone shouted, ‘Get that canned food at the back – all that canned stuff!’