Dora had nobody except Uncle Donny, who wasn’t a real ‘uncle’ at all. He was her mum’s boyfriend, Angel knew that, she wasn’t stupid. She knew he stayed overnight sometimes when he felt like it. She wished that Donny would marry her mother, make a respectable woman of her, and then maybe Dora would kick the drink and fags and her miserable ways and pull herself together. Then they would be able to move somewhere nice, somewhere different.

‘My mum says yours works as a stripper. She says it’s shameful,’ said Tommy.

‘She’s an exotic dancer,’ said Angel, her face burning. ‘She doesn’t do that much, anyway. Not any more.’

‘That’s a stripper.’

‘You don’t know nothing.’

‘Yeah I do. My Auntie June told me all about it.’

Angel remembered her mother saying that her sister June was the worst of bitches, she was vicious. Again Angel recalled the scrawny woman in the doorway of the family home, and the other one, the big blockish one with black hair like Tommy’s, and the older woman too. Her grandmother, now dead. Mother and sisters, they had all turned their backs on Dora. Angel hated them.

‘So your mum’s my Auntie Lil,’ she said.

‘That’s right.’

‘Mum said my granddad kicked her out on the streets when she got pregnant with me.’

‘That’s right. Some spiv from the war knocked her up. And then what did she do? She takes up with a gangster who ends up in jail, and she gets involved in a court case and now she’s . . .’ Tommy stopped talking.

‘She’s what?’ asked Angel.

‘Nothing.’ He was staring at her. ‘My lot always said your ma was a looker, and that was her downfall. Looking at you, I can see what they meant. You got the looks too. Mum says Gran overindulged your mum, made her stupid.’

Angel took that in. Her mother didn’t look much these days. She had bags under her eyes from the drink, and her mouth was pulled down in a permanent scowl of unhappiness.

‘It’s bloody harsh,’ said Angel, getting angry. ‘To just kick her out like that. Families ought to stick together.’

‘She was an embarrassment,’ said Tommy.

Angel hopped down off the wall. ‘Fuck you,’ she snapped, and walked away.

‘Hey!’ Tommy caught up with her, caught her arm. ‘Come on, let’s not fall out. They already done all that. You and me, we ought to have more sense. We’re cousins.’

Angel shook her head. ‘Nah, I’ve had it with this.’ She pulled her arm free of his grip and walked quickly on. Annoyingly, he was now walking alongside her, matching her stride for stride.

‘Come on, let’s be friends,’ he said.

‘Fuck off.’

‘I could use a friend,’ he said. ‘My dad died last year you

know.’

Angel stopped walking and looked at his face. ‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’

‘Shit happens,’ said Tommy, but there was a glint of a tear in his eye. ‘Anyway.’ He drew in a sharp breath and blinked. ‘We heard that your mum took up with some copper,’ said Tommy.