‘Oh. That.’

‘Yeah, that. You don’t muck Lenny Axelford around like that, it ain’t done.’

‘I forgot,’ she said.

‘How the fuck could you forget that? We only arranged it a couple of days ago.’

Easily, thought Angel. The night before last loomed into her head again, and she shuddered, feeling disconnected from this outside world where things ran out as normal, where everything was fine, where people went about uncomplicated daily lives.

It’s a game he plays to punish me, her mother had told her.

And God she knew that was the truth now. She didn’t know what the punishment of Dora was for, but she knew that Donny intended to go right on with it, tormenting Dora by hooking up with Angel right in front of her. She felt like crying or shrieking, she didn’t know which. Because both her and Dora were trapped in a circle of hell. They were pawns of a man bent on hurting them both and they had no one to turn to for help.

Maybe they could call the police. Talk to someone. But Donny was police. Working from inside, he would quash every accusation they cared to hurl at him with ease. They had no family to turn to. Angel remembered again that doorstep pleading her mother had done, only to be rejected. Oh, there was Tom, but what could he do? Nothing. He didn’t even know there was a problem, and Angel couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t. As for the rest of Dora’s ‘family’? They didn’t give a stuff about her or about the shame, the humiliation, that had become Angel’s and Dora’s everyday life. It was too much to bear, but it was also far too raw to be spoken about.

How could she even begin to form the words? Oh, my mother’s boyfriend took me to bed and forced me to have sex with him, while my mother lay spark out, pissed as a rat, on the couch. How could you say a thing like that?

Now Angel understood so much more than she did before. She understood Dora’s drinking, her smoking, her wanting to blot out the world. Dora was in despair, she had been for years. And now . . . oh Christ, now it was her turn.

‘You’re a dreamy cow, aintcha?’ Tom said, but he was half-smiling. ‘Come on, Angel, shape up. Lenny was spitting feathers when you didn’t show but I told him, one last chance, you were a good worker and you were sorry. Tomorrow, OK? Three o’clock? Fuck this lot off and come.’

‘Yeah,’ said Angel, just to get rid of him. The queue was getting longer and longer, and the manageress was back in the front of the shop, tutting. ‘OK.’

91

Angel had been dreading going home to the flat, but this time, when she let herself in the front door, she found Dora awake on the couch, and looking sober. This was a whole new experience for Angel. Dora stared at her as she came in, and her gaze was cold as ice.