Nan said faith is something that has to be fed and nurtured. ‘It’s a gift’, she said, ‘to hope for something more.’ The Bible she gave me for my eighth birthday still has the plastic cover on. Sometimes when Mum’s out I open it at random and try to find something familiar, something that might bring the feeling back.

I can’t think about any of it now. Not Lorna, or the others. Everyone I ever went to school with leaving town and spreading out across the country like arrows on a map. Invasion. Escape. I’m still hungry. I could eat the other pasty easily, but I don’t. I get up and start walking back towards the bus stop, past what used to be Pizza Hut and now doubles as a shitty Christmas shop and a temporary place to buy fireworks. Past the sports shop with trashy dance playlist – all drum machines and over-produced vocals. You have to wear branded tracksuit bottoms to be allowed in. It’s a legal requirement. Past the man who always sits on a stool outside BHS playing French love songs on the accordion.

I’m holding the bag so the grease doesn’t get all over the other stuff. The pasty’s going cold. I want rid of it. All I have to do is hand it over. Say Here you go mate, as though I do things like this every day – as if it means nothing. And not wait around to see his reaction, not look as though I’m waiting for gratitude. My palms are sweating. I feel shivery and wired, like I’m about to sit an exam. Maybe he’s not hungry. Maybe I should’ve bought him a drink as well. Nothing worse than being thirsty and the food sticking in your throat. Maybe he’s a fucking vegetarian.

I stop and breathe and look like I’m really interested in the nearest shop window, the cheap pyjamas and cushions shaped like cupcakes and chocolates wrapped in shiny pink cellophane. Don’t forget your Mum on Mother’s Day, and the date in big bold letters to really hammer it home. Time is running out, people, buy now, buy here!