‘What are we doing here?’ Eva asked her, and Beth felt the ripple of her sister’s unease inspiring her own jittery reflex.

But then Corinne was leaning out the door, smiling her encouragement. ‘Come on! He’s waiting.’

Brave was not something you were – it was something you decided. That was what Corinne had told her, again and again. Courage was a choice. Beth tried to hold on to that thought as she moved past Eva and stepped into the gloom.

The reek was the first thing she noticed. The house smelt of wet dog. Then, as her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, she saw that they were in a living room, sparsely furnished. The mantelpiece bore a garland of dulled tinsel. Snuffling and squealing on a bunched-up blanket on the floor was a litter of pups. Beth counted seven in all.

Corinne bent down and scooped one of them up, exclaiming over it with delight.

‘Oh, they are so cute! I want one!’ she announced, hungrily nuzzling the little puppy as it scrambled in her embrace.

Beth could have ignored the squalor if Eva hadn’t been there. If it had just been her and Corinne, she might have been able to shrug off the conditions of the place. But instead she saw the horror in her sister’s unguarded expression and saw the room through Eva’s unblinkered gaze: the stack of dirty plates on the countertop, the array of squashed cans and empty beer bottles that littered the surfaces of the room. A tatty sofa bore the sprawling weight of a huge black dog with weeping eyes, ropes of saliva swinging from his jaws; another dog – clearly the mother of the pups – prowled around the kitchen, slack teats swinging, claws clacking on the filthy lino. There was a thick, dense, stupefied air to the place – even the dogs seemed sedated – and when a toilet flushed in a distant room, the sound startled her. Seconds later, Bruno appeared, hitching his jeans up over narrow hips and buttoning his fly.

Instinctively, Beth took a step back while Bruno exchanged kisses with Corinne. He put the cigarette he’d been smoking back between his lips and then took the puppy from her arms, pinching hold of the skin at the back of its neck and holding it aloft. He spoke but Beth couldn’t understand what he was saying – words tripping and slurring into one another. She understood it was to do with the dog’s masculinity, something coarse and rude from the growled tone of his delivery, the way Corinne squealed with horrified laughter, clutching at his arm as she leaned forward.