‘I’ve come here today to pay a bit towards it.’ Nula looked in her handbag, extracted three fivers, and put them down on the desk. Then she looked him in the eye. ‘And to say I can’t pay the rest.’

Charlie sat back in his seat and eyed her beadily. She was a pretty little thing really. And she had backbone, fronting it out like this. Way back, he could remember her as podgy and plain, with her hair a mess and her nose dominating her whole face. Now, there was a big improvement. In fact – yeah – he fancied her.

‘You probably got the hump over me giving your brother a pasting,’ said Charlie.

‘No,’ said Nula. ‘I was glad you did.’

‘You what?’

Nula shrugged. ‘I don’t like my brother.’

‘Right.’ Charlie was eyeing her up. ‘So what if I was to say, come out to dinner with me one evening? Pay off your debt in kind, as it were?’

Nula returned his stare in surprise. She hadn’t expected that. No man had ever come on to her before. She was plain little Nula. Deep down she still felt like that, despite the evidence that looked back at her from her bedroom mirror these days. Outside, she was different. Inside, reality had yet to sink in. If it ever would, which sometimes she doubted.

Charlie had given Jimmy a thumping, and she liked that. Also . . . if she got close to Charlie, then she was getting close to Terry too, and it was Terry she was interested in. Maybe if Charlie noticed her, then somehow, by some miracle, Terry would too?

‘What would that involve?’ she asked bluntly.

Charlie frowned at her. ‘Having dinner. Talking. That sort of thing. You know. Normal boy-girl things.’

Nula thought of Terry, out there in the hall.

‘OK,’ she said.

18

Charlie took Nula out to dinner at the Ritz; it was posher than anything Nula had ever experienced in her entire life. Of course, her parents and Jimmy ganged up on her before she went out on their date.

‘Charlie Stone’s a villain,’ said Jimmy, face black with temper. He liked to control Nula. With Charlie sniffing around, he wouldn’t be able to do that any more. ‘You ought to be ashamed, our Nula, going out with the likes of him. One minute he’s chasing you for money, now he’s treating you to dinners? You want to go careful.’

‘What money?’ said Mum.

‘Nula got a loan off the bastard,’ said Jimmy, landing her right in it. Deliberately.

‘Our Nula!’ Mum’s eyes were wide with shock behind her glasses. ‘You didn’t.’

Nula didn’t answer.

‘He comes round here, I’m going to tell him to piss off,’ said Dad, disgusted.