Kathy had gone back to her job at the Europa after an extended sick leave where her and her husband Davy had fled their home and moved in with the mother-in-law; she told me this on our first date. Was it a date? She never, explicitly, says that she was doing it to keep the Ra away. And to protect her husband. I never once says that I could. But in the back of my mind, and in her mind too, I believed, there was an element of pay-off, of protection.

But I convinced myself that she was attracted to me. That she saw something in me, something that drew her to me. Something special. We would meet in a room at the Europa; afternoons, early evenings, normally just when her shift was finishing. She had keys to the rooms and she knew what ones were unoccupied, and for how long, and we would make love, and it was the only thing, and it was the first thing, I understood that then. The power of making love to a woman. And sometimes she would change into her outfit for me. A turquoise leotard with white high heels and leggings. At work she smelt of cigar smoke, and of dark liquor, and of black flowers. I would bite her and leave nicks and bruises in her. You did that to me, she would say, and she would point to a little bruise in her night-time thighs, put her tongue between her lips.

I told her we had taken over her man’s shop. That he shouldn’t go back there. She says that he knew, that one of the weans that came in had told him and he was staying away. This way The Boys get their money back, and no one gets hurt, I says to her. Except for you, she says to me. Except for you, I’ll break your heart, she says.

*