He was supposed to sleep in Aunty Nic’s room, which had been more cleared out than the others. But there was a stain on the carpet he knew came from her body. Lena had done her best, but blood and piss don’t ever come out, not fully. Ask anyone who’s worked prison laundry. The bed was clean, fresh sheets and all, but even with the light off the stains across the room bothered him. The longer he lay there the more the residue seemed to be seeping into him. He thought about little Taylah and Haymish, how often he’d cleaned up their leaking body fluids or got up to change wet sheets and pyjama pants in the middle of the night. Hadn’t bothered him one bit. Little kid piss was nothing. In prison the smell of other men’s leakages was constant. The disinfectant made it worse, its chemical stench burning your nostrils and making them more sensitive than ever to the piss and shit and come, the sweat and unwashed hair and balls.

This was not like that. The room smelt a little musty but nothing animal, nothing invasive or infectious. But still. Someone had bled and pissed on the carpet a metre away from where he lay. Not just someone. Aunty Nic. Family. Made it worse somehow. Will imagined his own uncreated, until this moment unimagined, nephew having to sleep in a room in which he himself had lost control of his functions. Imagined the pity and disgust the kid would feel for poor old Uncle Will. The shame socked him in the chest.

He took the quilt and pillow, inched his way to the door, giving the stain a wide berth. The spare room. He could clear the things from the bed onto the floor tonight, clean up properly in the morning.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lena said.

Will spun, tripping on the dangling quilt, taking a moment to find his balance again. She was on the sofa, her phone screen illuminating a face so old and haunted-looking his breath caught in his throat.

‘What?’ The phone dropped on her lap, her face in darkness and so bearable.

‘Yeah, sorry, Leen. Can’t sleep in there.’

‘There’s nowhere else.’

‘What about—’

‘Spare room? Yeah, good luck.’