George took the stairs two at a time, his injuries forgotten in the panic to get away from them. He rushed into the bedroom he shared with Joseph, straight for his sister’s arms. He began to sob again as he heard the crashing from below. Edith caressed the short-cropped head, wincing every time a loud crash thundered up from below. She saw Joseph lying on the bed staring at the ceiling and felt a sense of futility.

‘Oh, please God, make them kill one another. Please make them both die.’

Her anguished voice was muffled with tears. Since Bert Higgins had moved into the house eighteen months earlier their lives had been even more disrupted than usual. Nancy had found in him a bully who was even more violent than she was. They had been alternately loved to death or beaten within an inch of their lives ever since they could remember. But since the advent of Bert, things had gradually grown worse. Their mother had never been stable; now she was positively deranged. Her main outlet for her frustrations was George. Edith did her best to keep him from her mother’s rages but lately it was getting more and more difficult. Bert drank, her mother drank, and the children, mainly George, took the brunt of it. Edith had been given the task of cleaning the house. Nancy Markham had pretensions to respectability, even blind drunk.

All three stood rooted to the spot as they heard their mother running across the front room and out into the hall. Her heavy footfalls on the stairs were followed by Bert’s.

‘Talk to me like that, would you, you slut? You bloody big fat slut!’

‘Take your filthy hands off of me, Bert Higgins, I’m warning you now.’

They listened to the scuffle on the stairs and then heard a thud and all went quiet. The three looked at each other in consternation.

‘Nancy? Nance?’ Bert’s voice was low and filled with fear.

Edith pushed George from her and ran from the room.

‘Oh my God!’ She ran down the stairs and pushed Bert roughly away. Her mother was lying sprawled on the stairs, her head bleeding profusely from the temple.

‘I never meant it, she fell and hit her head.’

Edith ignored the man and examined her mother. It was a flesh wound. As she peered at it, Nancy’s eyes opened and she pushed the girl away from her.

‘Get away out of it, you.’ Joseph and George stood at the top of the stairs dumbstruck.

Nancy put her hand to her head and brought the fingers away blood-stained.

‘You bastard! I’m bleeding.’

‘Look, Nancy, I’m sorry. Honestly, darlin’, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, you know that. I could cut me hands off.’