I was about to share this observation with Sarge when he suddenly spat on the ground. ‘Scum,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘Scum, the lot of them.’

Here was my chance. As we cleared away the produce I asked him why he dealt with the vicar, why he took his money, if he hates religion so much. He stopped for a moment, frowned, wiped his forehead then looked at me. ‘I’ve got nothing against taking his money,’ he said, fixing me with that glare he usually keeps for staring at a target. ‘In fact, it makes a change for folks like us to get something out of the likes of him. It’s usually the other way round.’ I asked what he meant and he started going on again about how when he was little he was sent to a Catholic school where he was taught by priests. He said every last one of them was a sadistic bastard. But he was tough too and he could handle that. What he couldn’t handle were the weekly visits from the parish priest. Every Saturday morning he’d come downstairs and see Father Hugh sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and eating cake with his mother. Cake they couldn’t afford but his mother always got in to keep up appearances, Sarge said, to make the priest think that they weren’t like the rest of the people on the street, the ones with dirty windows and dog shit in their yard, that they were good people, respectable people, who kept cake in Tupperware boxes and drank tea out of china cups. The priest would ask how they were doing – Sarge and my gran, it was just the two of them because my granddad had died when Sarge was five – and he’d make out like he cared. He’d listen to my grandmother’s complaints about the condition of the houses round about and say how wonderful it was that Sarge was doing so well at school. But then just before he was leaving he’d casually mention the little matter of the church roof that needed fixing or the Christmas boxes for the elderly that needed filling, and if Gran had a bob or two to spare it would be gratefully received. Sarge said they had no money whatsoever to spare. They were poor. Dirt poor. But the priest played on her good nature, told her that all the parishioners were pitching in, made her feel guilty. ‘Cos that’s what they do, lass,’ Sarge said as we lifted the trestle back into the house. ‘They play on your conscience.’ And my gran would fall for it. She’d go to the little teapot she kept on the dresser and take out her last couple of bob to give to the priest. Then she and Sarge would live off bread and marge for the rest of the week.

‘They have no conscience,’ Sarge said. ‘Parasites, the lot of them. That’s why I have no problem taking their cash off them now.’