Dedicate himself to it and try

Despite the fact he wants to cry

Y–’

‘Are you stuck on the last line?’ Tony asked.

She nodded.

‘What do you want to say?’

‘That even when he wants to cry, he has to forget about himself and think about me.’

‘Why does he want to cry?’

‘Because of Mum,’ she said, simply. ‘I hear him sometimes, at night, but he doesn’t want me to know, so I pretend I’m sleeping.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Tony said. ‘That must be tough.’

She nodded. ‘I want to start with Y but there’s only You that could be used and he’s not Your daddy, he’s my daddy, so that doesn’t make sense.’

‘What about, ‘You can always count on him’?’ Tony offered.

Alice tried not to react, but could not hide the lack of enthusiasm she felt for his suggestion.

‘Let me think about it,’ Tony said, feeling just a little embarrassed at his lack of skill.

‘It is a fairly shit line,’ Karen said now, as Tony recounted the story. ‘The wee girl’s better at it than you are.’

‘I felt sorry for the man,’ Tony said, having taken mock offence at her comment. ‘He sounds like he’s struggling. I feel even more sorry for her.’

‘Why? Her dad’s obviously looking after her.’

‘He’s doing his best, maybe, but she’s just not fitting in. Even in class, no one would sit with her. Kids can be really nasty to one another.’

‘So can adults,’ Karen said. They passed a row of houses, before turning again, up the left. As they drove up along the crescent, Karen counted off the numbers of each house silently to herself.

‘That one,’ she said, with a barely perceptible nod.

It was one of four terraced houses in the block, narrow, with beige pebble-dashing. The garden, small and square, was a little overgrown, as if the last cut had been missed. A small wooden gate, sun-bleached and blistering, gave way to a short pathway leading to the front door. A red Ford Cortina was parked on the street outside, one side elevated because he had parked it up half on the pavement, the other side on the road.

‘Small house for a cop,’ Tony said.

‘Maybe he’s renting,’ Karen said. ‘If he got out on disability, he’d have got a decent payment for it.’

Tony looked out of the passenger window and could see shops down below the estate, separated from it by the main thoroughfare. A number of cars were already parked at the front of the shops.

‘We could park down there and watch up,’ he said.

They stopped in front of the shop units. In addition to a small supermarket, there was a hairdresser’s, a pharmacy and both Chinese and Indian takeaways. Tony offered to go and buy a bag of chips to eat in the car, giving them a pretext for staying in the parking area, he reasoned.

‘Maybe later,’ Karen said. ‘I’m OK for now.’