Alan shook his head. ‘What I know you can’t learn from books, love, you learn it from experience. Remember that.’

He stared into her face, feeling the familiar pull of her, the pull he’d noticed the first time he’d clapped eyes on her. He sighed. Her blue eyes were glittering, emphasising her anger; her hair was like a thick mane. Her stubborn little chin was set; her mouth quivering with indignation. Alan groaned inwardly. What he’d really like to do was strip her off in the car and fuck the arse off her. That was what was wrong with him and he knew it. He was picking on her, and had homed in on the thing that would hurt her most, her inability to have children. He was a nasty, evil-minded man, and he was ashamed because he still didn’t feel sorry. Inside himself he knew she needed knocking down a peg, and he wanted to do it before they got to Glasgow and she met the people he had been talking about. Her idea of a slum was living in Canning Town, like Ma and Pa Brunos did. She had never in her life been subjected to a real dump, with hard people. Glasgow would be an education, as would Liverpool or the seamier parts of London.

He stared into her face, willing himself to calm down. She couldn’t help being what she was; she was lucky she had never had to live as he had. Was lucky never to have had to scrimp or save or wonder where the next meal was coming from. She had been lucky all her life.

Mrs Good Woman soon lost all her fancy values when Mr Good Man got banged up though, even though Mr Good Man was as bent as a nine-bob clock. Yet still she looked down on Alan, and the people they were dealing with. It was a pity she didn’t look down her nose at that husband of hers. She didn’t know the half of it where Georgio was concerned . . .

His bad temper was over now.

‘I’m sorry, Donna.’