School was wearying. Maths and English and History she didn’t even care about. Art was OK. Uncle Donny had bought her a sewing machine last Christmas, and she liked to stitch things, make dresses. She dreamed of being a designer like Quant or Barbara Hulanicki at Biba. It pained her, all this talk about her mother. She loved Dora. Saw the sadness in her, saw the pain in her mother’s face when the other women gossiped about her and edged away. They were so different, Angel and her mother. Dora was loud and wild – although she always quietened down when Uncle Donny was about the place – but Angel was quiet, caring. It was like she was the parent and Dora the child, sometimes.

Most days it was Angel who cooked the tea, did the shopping, tidied the flat. Those were Dora’s drunken days, bad days, when she had the sherry bottle beside her on the occasional table as she sprawled out on the sofa, when she swore at Angel and called her filthy names if she tried to take it away from her. On good days – there were a few – Dora stirred herself to put on an apron and prepare a meal. Angel lived for those days, when they sat and ate and chatted and laughed, two girls together. But those days were rare. Then Uncle Donny would come in and there would be raised voices and Dora would cry, and the drinking would begin again.

Mum didn’t work much, so Angel guessed that for some reason Uncle Donny must be seeing she was all right for money. Well, sort of. Dora never seemed to have so much as a fiver in her purse, but they never actually went without. Uncle Donny held the purse strings, that much was clear.

‘Your mum’s a drunken bint,’ said one of the girls to her in the playground, eyes alight with spite.

Angel stared at the girl. ‘Take that back,’ she said flatly.

‘Why? Truth hurts, does it?’

A crowd was gathering. Angel looked around their rapt faces. They wanted to see what was going to happen next. Angel turned and walked away.

‘Hey, gutless!’ the girl called after her. ‘You got nothing to say about your slag mother then?’

Angel turned back and slapped the girl hard across the face. A shocked gasp went up from the watching crowd and the girl raised her hand to strike. Then a boy caught her arm and twisted it up behind her back.

‘Ow!’ she yelled.

‘Oi! What you think you’re doin’, you bitch!’ he said, and pushed her back, away from Angel.

The girl gave him a sulky look, then took the hint. The watching crowd dispersed, leaving Angel there with her rescuer, who was staring at her in frank curiosity.

Angel returned his stare. He was a tall boy, pigeon-chested and brown-eyed, with a scruff of blackish hair above his long thin face. His trousers flapped around his ankles and his school jacket was halfway up his forearms after a growth spurt. She hadn’t seen him in her class but he looked familiar – he was one of the older boys, she thought, in the next form up.