Davey wiped a hand across his face in agitation.

‘Look, Carol, we’re married, not joined at the fucking hip. I went for a drink with a bloke, and that’s it.’

Carol snorted in a very unladylike fashion.

‘My name’s Gilly Hunt, not silly cunt, and I ain’t changing it for you or anyone else, mate. Now tell me the truth or I swear before God I’ll stick a fucking knife through your guts!’

‘Mum, can I have packed lunch tomorrow?’

Jennie Jackson, used to the violent arguing of her parents, walked casually into the room.

Turning on her daughter like a maniac, Carol bellowed, ‘Ask your father, because if I don’t get any answers here today, I’m fucking off out of this house and he can have the lot of you!’

Jennie, raising her eyes to the ceiling, said in a resigned voice, ‘I’ll take that as a no then, shall I?’ She wandered out again.

Carol stared into her husband’s face. Her voice lower now, and with a hint of tears running through it, she said, ‘I mean it, Davey. If you’re out shagging again, that’s it this time. I’ve taken just about all I can. There’s a bill for a restaurant in your trouser pocket, it’s for over a hundred nicker, and you sure as Christ never took me there!’

Davey stared into his wife’s miserable face. He could see the tiny thread veins that ran through her cheeks, from too many nights spent drinking Bacardi while waiting up for him. He saw the deep circles under her eyes and the faded blue of their irises. Her heavy figure, encased as usual in a dress two sizes too small, was a legacy of the kids and takeaway dinners. He felt a moment’s affection for her. Deciding that with Carol in this mood, and the odds on getting knifed growing shorter by the second, he would tell her the truth. One thing with Carol, if you held your hand up, she was quite fair.

‘You know me, Carol, a pair of bristols and I’m away. She was only a slag.’

‘Who was it, Davey? Do I know her?’

He sighed heavily. ‘Of course you don’t know her, what do you take me for? When have I ever made a grab for one of your mates? Give me a bit of savvy, would you? I might bat away from home now and again, but I have got some fucking morals, you know!’

Carol grinned now, and Davey knew he was halfway home. He might get a plant around the head, but the knife was no more a threat.

‘I still want to know who it was.’