“You’re home early,” Moyra commented from the doorway.

“Did you get a video?” he asked.

“Yeah . . . The cops’ve been here again, they took the rest of your shoes. I said they’d better bring them quick or you’d be selling paint in your stocking feet.”

“No I won’t,” he answered, “I quit today before they could sack me.”

Moyra walked to the window, the tears pricking her eyes. She moved the curtain slightly to look across at the dark windows of the surveillance flat.

“Bastards! You’d think we were the spies, the way they carry on. I’m keeping the chain on the door all the time now. They’ve had all our keys, and I don’t trust them. They could have had them copied . . .”

He looked up. He couldn’t say anything to comfort her, and she was trying hard not to cry as she said, “It’s getting me down, George, like we’re prisoners . . .”

“I’m sorry . . .” He put his hand out for her, but she held back, folding her arms.

“Moyra, don’t you turn against me. No one said a single word to me in the factory, except Edward Harvey, and even he didn’t want to look me in the eye . . . I love you, Moyra, but I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“I have to take it too, George. With you not earning, what are we going to do?”

He stood there looking forlorn and his voice cracked as he said, “I won’t let them beat me, I’ll find another job . . .” He shook his fists in the air in frustration and yelled, “I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it! So help me God, I didn’t do it . . .”

The telephone rang and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He stared at it as it continued to shrill.

Moyra sighed. “I’ll get it. If it’s another of those filthy bloody perverts . . . And those kids next door . . .”

She picked up the phone but said nothing for a second or two, then, “Oh, hallo, Doris . . . Yes, just a minute.”

She turned to George. “It’s your mum, it’s a payphone.”

He shook his head, unable to face speaking to her.

“You’ll have to talk to her, come on, love.”

He pulled himself up and took the receiver. Moyra was astonished that he could sound so bright.

“Hallo, Mum! I’m fine, yeah. How’s your hip? It is?” He whispered to Moyra, “She’s only using one stick now!”

He listened awhile, then answered, “Thanks, Mum, I wish the cops felt the same way. You know what they’re like . . . I’m sorry, they’re talking to everyone I know.”

Moyra watched him closely until he put the phone down and stood there, dejected.

“You never even mentioned you’ve no job, you should have told her.”

“It wasn’t necessary.”