‘Sounds nice,’ said Nula. No, he hadn’t told her. Another of Charlie’s mad schemes. She was so used to them, she barely blinked when he said it. She was cold with him now, withdrawn. He’d shagged Jill. Raped the poor bint. All right, Nula had no time for Jill, but for Chrissakes! She was a woman, and as a woman Nula understood very well that an outrage had been committed and that it was awful – despicable. She couldn’t forgive it. The bastard.

‘And I’m taking flying lessons. Whirlybirds. Helicopters. You know.’

‘Yeah sure,’ said Nula. ‘Why not?’

She wrote that down in her journal under the heading More of Charlie’s crazy shit.

45

Nula got a new christening gown for Jake from Harvey Nicks, a beautiful long creation in cream lace with pearls sewn into the bib and all around the hem. She treated herself to a lilac outfit complete with hat and after the church ceremony the christening party went ahead. It was a bright sunny day. They had a marquee in the grounds and all their mates and their wives came and had a fantastic time that went on until two in the morning, when Plod showed up at the door with complaints from the neighbours over the field.

Nula and Charlie turned off David Essex promising he was going to make someone a star, fished a few over-partied revellers out of the heated pool at the back of the big house, and the whole lot of them turned in for what remained of the night.

‘Now that,’ said Charlie at breakfast, ‘was a proper party. A real old-fashioned East End knees-up like the old folks used to have, you remember, Nules?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, thinking of her old home back in the Smoke, thinking regretfully of her sweet old-fashioned mum and dad. She felt a pang of sadness. They’d done their best for her, she knew that. Her parents, who could be dead by now for all she knew. And her brother Jimmy, who she hoped was dead, the arsehole. No happy memories there.

People were scared of her on the old manor now. No one reacted to her normally, no one passed the time of day with her when she went back there. She could see the difference, straight away. Even in the corner shop, everyone would fall silent when she stepped inside. She was ushered to the front of every queue. At first, she had enjoyed that. Now, she just wished that it didn’t happen, that life could be as simple as it once had been.