So here Suki was. Trailer trash, just like Stefan said. She couldn’t even remember the car crash in which she’d lost her parents. Ginny had told her about it when she was old enough to take it. And Suki guessed that it had been so traumatic that her three-year-old brain had simply stashed it somewhere under the heading too bad to think about. But still – she felt the loss of her parents all the time, like there was a gap in her life she ached to fill, and never could.

Now it was evening, the day’s work over, and Suki and her aunt sat on the stoop watching the sun go down and contemplating life. They were putting off the hour when it would be bedtime because the nights were hot in the trailer but you didn’t leave your windows open, because people would come in the night and take what little you had. There were good people on the park, some who could even be called friends, but there were others too, who would rob and rape and think nothing of it. So, overnight, you sweated and stayed safe.

‘Good day, hun?’ asked Aunt Ginny, sipping at her beer.

Suki thought her aunt looked thinner than ever in the evening’s light, her skin waxy. There was a high spot of colour on each sunken cheek, but it didn’t look healthy or good; it looked like the flush of fever.

‘Got a few good tips,’ said Suki. She had never mentioned Sweaty Stefan to her aunt, and she never would. Ginny would be worried, and she couldn’t have that.

‘Well save ’em up, gal, and you and me, we’ll do the world cruise.’

‘Will we stop in Barbados?’ asked Suki. This was an old much-loved game of theirs, speculating over where the non-existent cruise of their dreams was going to take them. Suki knew she would never go anywhere; Aunt Ginny was growing frail and she couldn’t leave her. She couldn’t take her along, either, supposing she ever got together enough money to do a trip, which was doubtful. Aunt Ginny used to be tough, but she was growing less so day by day. No, travelling was just a dream, something to cheer the pair of them when they’d had a hard time of it. That was all.

‘Barbados you say? Hell no. I hear Antigua’s the place these days.’

‘Then we’ll go there.’

‘I’d like to see England. They got a queen and everything. Palaces and stuff.’

‘We’ll do that too. In between cruises. In between sitting at the captain’s table and eating with fancy cutlery. No more jambalaya on the bayou for us.’

‘We’ll flick peas at him.’

‘They clap you in irons for things like that. Like in the pirate movies.’