‘Dora,’ said Mum. Her eyes went down to the silent child clutching on to Dora’s hand. Then they went back up to Dora’s face. ‘Oh Dora. Dad died. His heart,’ said Mum.

Dora gasped. Now she looked at the windows. All the curtains were pulled shut. And they were all wearing black.

‘It’s too late, Dora,’ said Lil, pulling Mum back.

‘No . . .’ Dora started, but they were gone and the door was already closed.

Angel had stood there and seen the people, her mummy’s family, shut the door on them both. Anxiously she had watched while her mother cried all the way back home, back to the flat. And then Mummy had told Uncle Donny where she’d been, what she’d been told by her mum and her sisters, and Uncle Donny said: ‘Well, can you say you’re surprised? You were a disappointment to your dad. A terrible disappointment. And I don’t like the idea of you going out and about without telling me where you’re going, you know that. Of course they won’t want you at the funeral, that goes without saying.’

And then Angel heard her mother sobbing and crying, long into the night. And Uncle Donny’s exasperated: ‘Oh for God’s sake, Dora, would you stop that fucking row?’

There was the noise of a slap.

Then, everything was quiet again in the flat.

76

1968

When Angel was eleven and ready to start big school, she knew her mother was a drunk. She dreaded Dora coming to the school gates with her, knowing she’d be a staggering, grinning, sad-eyed embarrassment dressed in high heels, too-tight pencil skirts and a fake leopard-skin coat. Unlike the other mothers, Dora smoked and talked too loudly and laughed too much at nothing.

Angel cringed to see the other women edging away from Dora, to see the other kids casting pitying looks her way. It was always a relief, when Dora tottered away down the road and Angel went into assembly. But there was no peace even there.

‘Your mum’s a bit of a girl, ain’t she,’ the other kids would say, nudging her.

She never answered. What could she say to that? Her mum was the ultimate embarrassment. A ‘single mum’, which was damning enough. Unheard of, and fiercely frowned upon. On top of that, Dora drank far too much and smoked like a chimney and lived ‘over the brush’ with Uncle Donny. Angel sometimes felt she hated Uncle Donny. She wished her mum had a proper life, with a proper husband who cared about her. Dora needed someone to care.

Angel knew her own father had been a jailbird, and once she’d plucked up the nerve to ask her mum about him. But Dora had snapped at her to drop it, and then Dora cried and got drunk, so Angel didn’t mention it again.

‘And her with a young daughter like that too,’ Angel heard one of the other mothers whispering to her mate. ‘Disgusting, I call it.’