‘You monster. I‘m going to tell you anyway, like it or lump it,’ he said, before giving a happy sigh – typical Dad, easing himself into a story that he’d change a little bit every time. ‘Your mamma was this foxy waitress in the cafe near work, looking like a Hollywood actress, and then she turns out to be Italian, which sends me just about over the edge.’

A half-flattered, half-dismissive sound from Mamma, who didn’t turn round.

‘So I work my magic on her and out we go to a dance, and I’m doing my moves like Elvis Presley, and she can’t take her eyes off me—’

‘More octopus than Elvis. It was hard to look anywhere else.’

‘And we have such a good time that we’re the last people out of there, and I belt out this Kris Kristofferson song to her on the street, or should I say serenade, and the lights in the houses next to us come on and a couple of windows open, and they applaud me and say I should be on the stage—’

‘They said you had had too much to drink. Which was true.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Dad, standing up and taking Mamma’s hand, and though she was reluctant and said that someone had to do the housework around here, she gave up and dropped the duster, her hardness falling away into smiles, and Matty watched the pair of them dance around the living room while he sang.

***

Later, in bed, there was the tiny, unmistakeable click of the back door, and three seconds later, another.

Every hair went prickly. It was him. He had come back, in the dead of night, after being away on his spy mission or his stakeout or his alien abduction.

Matty waited for the bottom step to creak. It would be fine if Dad just went to bed. He wouldn’t want to wake his sleeping child. He would wait until the morning and be there, as if nothing had happened, toast and the paper and strong tea. Morning to you, Bright Eyes. What time d’you call this? Trying hibernation on for size?

There were more sounds, but outside. In the yard. Matty got up.

There were black iron steps going from the back door, ones that used to be scary as you could see right through them. They wound down in a spiral to a thin concrete area with a wall around it. The kosher supermarket underneath them had a larger yard over the wall with big bins. You could sometimes see packets of vegetables dumped in there, unopened.

There was a glow outside. Matty pressed up against the mottled glass. Opened the door a crack.

Outside, in their yard, there were flames, flickering, and next to it was a dark figure. It was the angel of death, come to take Matty’s soul up to heaven.

No. It was Mamma. And she was burning things.