Mabel’s death left me feeling gloomy and depressed. Jonny’s telling me 30,000 cats were killed on the roads of Britain every year and singing “Ding, dong bell, pussy’s in the well” didn’t help. It was Saturday so he wasn’t at work but he seemed to have left Liv alone. Of Wim there was again no sign. No one had seen him for two days. Morna and Judy came around in the late morning. We had no plans to go on the roofs until the evening. It was a hot steamy sort of day, the air heavy and smelling of diesel and roses, a curious sickly mixture.

Silver said he’d take us all out to lunch in a pub in Blenheim Terrace where we could eat outside. He meant it as a treat for me because I was sad. Jonny had gone out somewhere by then and Liv, of course, wouldn’t come with us. Morna had her mother’s car with her and Liv would only have had to cross the pavement and get into the backseat but even that was too terrifying for her to contemplate. So we all went down without her and there, parked behind Morna’s mother’s car, was a van delivering wine for Selina’s party. Selina came running out to shout instructions to the driver. She didn’t see me. By then I was sitting in the car, watching her in the rearview mirror and telling myself not to hate her just because she had shooed Mabel out of old Mrs. Fisherton’s on the last day of her life.

I had never felt so close to Silver as I did that day. I wanted to be physically near him too and he seemed happy about that. At lunch and afterward we sat side by side with our bodies pressed close together and holding hands when we weren’t actually eating. I drank a lot of wine and so did he to keep me company. We’d have to sleep off its effects before we went on the roofs but that was all right too, we were soon desperate to be alone and in our bed and making love.