All day long, she sat on her big double bed talking to strange men over the phone. The men were faceless, they paid by credit card and they explained exactly what kind of call they wanted. Hattie always obliged. She could be a nervous virgin, breathless and frightened, or she could be a mature woman who told her callers off, threatening them with corporal punishment and sighing happily when they promised to be good boys. Hattie was also adept at being a naughty housewife, a tantalising femme fatale, or in extreme cases a transvestite. The only thing Hattie would not be was a child. She drew the line at child sex even over a telephone line.

Stephen watched as Hattie ‘finished off’ the caller. Picking up a Mars bar, she pushed it into her mouth and sucked on it, making slapping, slurping noises, talking into the phone with her mouth full of chocolate about how big and hard it was. She saw Stephen watching her and rolled her eyes at the ceiling. She held the phone away from her ear, disgusted with the noises emanating from the receiver.

When she put the phone back to her ear the line was dead.

‘I thought he was never going to come!’ she told Stephen. ‘I’ve been through about six Mars bars this morning! Put the kettle on and I’ll take me phone off the hook. I’ve more than had enough, I can tell you.’

Stephen plugged in the small white kettle and grinned. ‘That was excellent, Hattie. You nearly had me going then.’

She pushed her huge bulk from the bed and waddled over to him. ‘Listen, sunshine, twenty years ago I could have had you going all night and into the next afternoon.’

Stephen kissed the florid cheek and said gently, ‘I believe you, Hattie. You know I do. You’re still a good girl, my lovely.’

Hattie grinned with pleasure at the pretence. Stephen still treated her with respect; he kept up the fiction that she was someone worthwhile, even though she knew in her heart she was no one, a nobody. The only thing was, Stephen did believe everything he said. He loved Hattie Jacobs in a strange, unaccountable way. Since he had taken her on to the books, he had felt an affinity with her. He looked at her fat jowly face and saw radiant beauty. In her huge cumbersome body he saw warmth and comfort. Twice he had shared her bed; neither attempt had been satisfactory, but the feeling he had for her was still there.

‘What can I do for you, Stephen? Or is this a social visit?’