Queenie chuckled. ‘Not on your nelly!’

Tonight the Huntingdon-Browns were holding an extremely important dinner party for the old crow of a mother. All their posh friends were invited. After the years of misery she’d endured working for them, today was going to be so much fun. It truly was.

Pearl yanked open her front door so hard it nearly flew off its hinges. ‘Over two hours late! Two hours and a quarter, to be exact, Queenie, on one of the most important days of my social calendar. How dare you do this to me! It’s totally unacceptable.’

Pearl’s eyes were blazing angrily just as Queenie had told Viv they’d be. ‘And who is this, erm, woman?’ asked Pearl, nodding her head towards Viv.

‘Sorry for being late, Mrs Huntingdon-Brown, but as I told you on the phone my youngest was spewing her guts up last night,’ Queenie lied. ‘This is my sister. She’s a cleaner too, so seeing as I know how important tonight is to you, Viv offered to help me. Two pairs of hands are better than one, so they say.’

Pearl looked Viv up and down as though she was something nasty she’d trod in. ‘I hope you don’t expect me to pay her?’

‘Of course not, Mrs Huntingdon-Brown. Now do you want us to come in and clean, or stand like two eels on your doorstep all day?’

‘Start in the kitchen, please. It’s messy. I’ve been busy all morning, making my mother’s favourite sherry trifle.’

‘Fine. Is Mother not here then?’ Queenie asked, her voice laden with sarcasm.

Viv nearly laughed, but covered it up well with a coughing fit. She had never met anyone like Pearl in her lifetime. The woman was far worse than Queenie had described.

‘Basil’s taken Mother out for the day, shopping in the West End. It’s a surprise party, as I told you the other day.’

‘Best we get cracking then, eh Viv?’ said Queenie.

‘Yep,’ Viv replied, immediately overcome with the urge to laugh again. Somehow she managed to cover it with a coughing fit once more.

As Viv and Queenie walked inside the hallway, Pearl grabbed Queenie’s arm. ‘She isn’t carrying any terrible diseases, your sister, is she? Nothing contagious, I mean.’

‘No. She suffers badly from asthma,’ lied Queenie.

Vinny Butler was raging. Not only had Ronnie Mitchell mugged him right off, it also turned out his father was mugging his mother off.

Vinny paced up and down inside the snooker club they’d just picked up the keys for. It now officially belonged to them. ‘This should be one of the happiest days of my life, bruv. Our lives. He needs knocking spark out, does that cunt, Ronnie. So does the old man.’

Roy poured himself and Vinny a large Scotch on the rocks. Dick had wanted to hold on to the club for another week, so he could find a buyer for the worn-out snooker tables and shitty wooden furniture. Desperate to surprise their mum today, Vinny had refused and ended up giving him another two hundred quid to sign the papers immediately. ‘I bought this bottle for us and the sherry for Mum and Auntie Viv to celebrate later, Vinny. Sit down, for Christ’s sake, will ya? You can’t go starting a war with the Mitchells. Ronnie is a prick, everyone knows that. As for Dad, don’t do anything daft. He and Mum haven’t even slept in the same bedroom for years.’