He turned over in bed and looked at Delia. Her breasts were spilling out of the covers in the early-afternoon light, the stretch marks visible, blue-grey. He felt his erection deflate and wished he was still tripping. He could handle Delia then. Sexually he couldn’t bear her any more. He wondered briefly why he’d ever taken up with her. Since the birth of Faith she was a pain in the arse. Correction, he told himself, she had always been a pain in the arse. But she had been good in the sense she’d had money. She’d always had money. And with Purple Hearts going at £60 a thousand in Piccadilly, she had supplied him the capital to start his own business.

Now they lived in the council tower block, and she didn’t take money from her family any more. She relied on him to keep her and the kid. That was the most annoying thing of all. All that lovely money going to waste, and that crying bastard in the other room.

He glanced at his watch. It was just after one-fifteen and that bitch was still asleep. The kid should have been fed hours ago, no wonder she was crying. Sometimes the child went to bed at five after only being up three or four hours. He elbowed Delia in her ribs none too gently and she woke with a start.

‘What was that for?’ Her eyes were ringed with mascara and kohl pencil, her hair a mass of backcombed knots.

‘Get up and see to the fucking kid, will ya? It ain’t been fed for ages.’

Delia turned on to her back and let out a long breath. ‘Give us a toke first.’

Jimmy passed the roach to her and as she pulled on it she burned her fingers. Jumping up in bed, she flicked the red hot flakes off her chest.

‘Serves you right, you fat bitch. Now make me a cuppa and get that kid sorted out.’

Delia got out of the bed, her large cumbersome body heavy with the LSD and cannabis of the night before. Jimmy closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

Delia pulled on a dressing gown, none too clean, and he heard her bare feet padding out of the bedroom.

Jimmy waited, tense in the bed. He heard the short slap and the child’s heartrending cry. Leaping off the mattress, he stamped into the child’s bedroom. Faith was standing up in the cot that was too small for her, a red handprint on her cheek. Her nose was running snot and her eyes were obliterated by tears.

He grabbed hold of Delia’s hair and slapped her across the face three times, back-handed slaps that sent her head this way and that with the force of the blows. Holding her chin in one big grubby hand, he pressed his face close to hers.