I should never have had that third pint. I can’t move, can’t think what to do. What’s May playing at letting Karen stay out till all hours? At home ironing shirts and wiping down the table when her daughter’s out here, up to all sorts. I stand up, hold onto the arm of the bench, watch her legging it away from the others, heading towards the main path. They yell at her. They’re on their way to the pavilion. She’s going home. The relief. I want to shout after her, to run and catch up and hold her hand across the road.

At home I go to undo my laces and lose balance. Steady myself on the shoe rack and force the buggers off, kicking them to the back of the porch next to Karen’s purple trainers with the stupid stacked heels. My toes throbbing, socks drenched with sweat, stinking to high heaven.

‘Where’ve you been so long?’ May says.

‘Out.’

‘Care to elaborate?’

‘No, I don’t care to elab…elaber…. I don’t care to – no.’

‘Please yourself.’

She goes back to the ironing in front of the TV, some sort of police drama – a car chase through empty docklands.

‘Where’s Karen?’

‘Upstairs packing.’

‘Where was she earlier?’

She looks at me. ‘Youth group. At the church hall. Why?’

I shrug.

‘Something you’re not telling me, Arthur?’

‘Can’t a man just ask about the welfare of his offspring now and then?’

The iron hisses. She sits it upright and swops the pair of pants across to the other leg. ‘I thought you were a happy drunk.’

‘I’m not drunk.’

She raises an eyebrow.

‘Bloody hell, woman. What is this? An interrogation?’

I go back out into the hallway. I’d kick something if my feet weren’t already throbbing. I lean on the bannister, torn between going upstairs and leaving the house.

‘There’s a little bit of trifle that needs eating in the kitchen,’ she says, cool as anything, ‘if you fancy it.’

Of course I stay. There’s nowhere else. I sit at the kitchen table and eat with a giant spoon straight out the serving bowl.

‘That’s disgusting,’ Karen says. She squeezes past to get to the fridge, ‘and there’s no orange juice.’

‘Oranges don’t grow on trees, you know.’

She gives me a look, a don’t-think-for-one-minute-you’re-even-remotely-funny kind of look.

‘There’s nothing to eat.’

‘We’re using everything up before the holiday.’

‘Great. Then I’ll just starve shall I?’

‘Have some trifle.’

‘Blancmange makes me want to puke.’

‘Mmmmmmm.’ I suck a great lump of it off the spoon.

‘You repel me.’ She slams the fridge door, stalks out and runs straight up the stairs. Grace of an elephant and the TV blaring and the ketchup clanking against an almost-empty bottle of milk.

‘Forecast’s rain!’ May shouts from the other room.