After his own two sons were born, he thrashed them without reserve, but he never touched David again. Perhaps Hugh had been newly enough in love with David’s mother to listen to her. Perhaps the memory of David’s dead father also helped to stay his hand, but David gave his mother full credit for that small victory. If it cost Hugh anything, it cost David a great deal more.

To be a gentleman, he not only could not hit girls but had to somehow prevent them from attacking him. And he had to be trusted.

‘Oh, David darling,’ his mother pleaded, ‘do try to be a better boy.’

That’s all he was, after all. If he had to have a new role model, why could it not be someone his own age and size instead of that great pig bully? And if he had to be kind and polite to a girl, why couldn’t she be his own size as well instead of someone capable of killing him if he didn’t fall in line?

Hugh would have taken David to hockey games and taught him how to fish and hunt if David had let him. But David’s policy was to be indifferent to anything that interested Hugh. Hugh was no great reader. David took up books with a passion. Hugh thought music was simply a form of noise. David listened to it while he was reading to block out all domestic sound. He loved the walking base of boogie, the slow drag of the blues. He confessed to his mother that he’d like to try piano lessons.

Hugh might have been more generous about David’s interests if he hadn’t perceived them for what they were, mainly ways of annoying Hugh. If he had bought instead of renting a piano, David might have quit in the first six months. By the time Hugh grudgingly gave in and bought it, David was too hooked for such revenge. There was so much more power in filling the house with his own sound than in simply turning up the volume of the radio, which could be unplugged and removed. And his mother actually liked it.

But his mother was pregnant. David had a fantasy that the pig man blew into her a bit more every night until she was so huge she was in danger of exploding. Now her size, too, was repellent. All bodies began to disgust David.

His only relief, aside from playing the piano, was being disgusting with his pack, whose excremental sexuality suited his own. They stank up rooms with their farts and foul language, giggling more hysterically than girls over how dirty it all was, how revolting. They retched and rolled with laughter.

‘You’ll like having a baby sister or brother,’ their mother said.