Matty stared at the framed needlepoint on the wall, upper arms still throbbing from the morning round of press-ups. God was the main guest in this place, a wooden crucifix above the bed in the room, a large-print Bible in the drawer. The stitching in the picture was purple on cream, the letters jerky. FAITH IS THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR – THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN. One of the threads had come loose in the corner.

‘Is that all right for you, there?’ The landlady was by the table, picking up the butter, a gold crucifix necklace swinging away from her chest. Jesus was trying to make a break for it.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

She hovered. ‘So what brings you out here, then? Not so much of a tourist area, this.’

The two couples on the other tables quietened a bit, the chatter on the radio in the kitchen spiking through. ‘Just family stuff.’

The landlady wasn’t going anywhere. ‘Oh, is that right? Round here, is it?’

‘Yeah.’ It might not be a lie. Matty would find out later.

She let out a sigh, bright with false interest. ‘And are you an auntie, then, or …?’ There it was. Having to confirm.

Matty didn’t bother using the napkin, standing up, the cup rattling loudly on its saucer. ‘Only child.’ Voice a little higher, just in case. ‘Do I pay you now?’

It was stupid, coming here. Matty sat in traffic in this sour, puny town, glancing over to see a kid with a lollipop looking back, their tongue blue. At least in London you got looked at less. Sometimes. There was Soho with the gays, old and young, on Old Compton Street, though it had felt different down there since the nail bomb. And Camden, hanging out among the freaks – pierced, tattooed, metallers and old punks, dreadlocked white boys and girls in leather kilts and biker boots. For a while Matty had kipped with Al at a commune at the grubbiest end of the high street, four storeys of damp Georgian terrace, light filtering through the wooden pallets that boarded the windows. Al, his slim frame in a sarong, his waist-length chestnut hair and veganism, stroking Matty into shivers with a manicured nail. One of his fellow squatters, Bee, was the first person to ever trigger any recognition, a green-haired bisexual who lent indigestible books by Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida, and talked obsessively about getting surgery with a conviction that felt painful.

She’d been like Rosa, that landlady, for a moment. Disapproving, uncomprehending. God whispering to her that Matty was not OK.

‘What has happened?’ Rosa had said once, years before, the school having telephoned her.

‘Fight.’ Matty had bruises already coming up. Right cheekbone, upper arm.

‘With who?’

‘Fifth-form boys.’

Fucking tranny-fag. Suck me. No, don’t bruv, she’s got AIDS-breath.

‘You disgust me. Fighting. Like a boy.’