He hadn’t seen her like this for a while – not since those long weekends at her flat in Maidstone, when she’d stay up drinking with that fella Malcolm, blasting their jazz music on the radiogram. Talk about a bad association. For a while, he’d thought she’d end up married to the fella, they were so entangled. Sometimes, she’d collect him at the bus stop on a Friday evening and Malcolm would be waiting at the flat to let them in; a sorry bunch of flowers would be laid out on the table for her, or a pot of jam or honey, or there’d be a packet from the butcher’s on the counter full of sausages or chops, a bottle of the rum she liked. And Joyce’s backbone would go soft on seeing what he’d brought, as though she would’ve danced with any man who’d trade his ration book for her affections. But Malcolm had more faces than a set of dice. On certain Friday nights, the fella would show up a few hours after supper, stinking of the pub; he’d throw his overcoat at Charlie and say, ‘Hang that up. Good lad,’ and he’d march over to the radiogram, switch off the quiz show they’d been listening to on the Home Service. ‘How’d it go, Mal?’ his sister would spring up and ask, and he’d say, ‘Pour me a stiff drink. We’re celebrating.’ That’d end their plans together for the night – no dominoes and cocoa, after all. Charlie would be left to sit there on the sofa, watching her and Malcolm foxtrot round the room to Benny Goodman. They had clumsy, thumping feet, but they were eager. Their voices and their laughter and the music would go on all night, as he was trying to fall asleep in Joyce’s room. He’d wake up and the phonogram would still be on and crackling with static. Malcolm would be standing at the kitchen counter in his manky shorts and vest, nursing a headache, while Joyce was folding up the pull-out. ‘Shshh, lad, will you? Stop your clattering,’ he’d say. ‘If you want to play the spoons, go somewhere else and do it.’ In those moments, he’d looked middle-aged and sallow. Old enough to be his sister’s teacher. Sweaty-faced and hairy at the chest and belly, morning breath like vinegar. What had she seen in him? He was always lurking round the place, pulling her to one side for a cuddle, whispering about things in a sort of code – ‘My cousin’s back in town. He wants to take a trip to Margate. Better count me out for supper’ – and she would try to plead with him, ‘Oh, can’t it wait? I’m taking Charlie to the pictures. Come with us,’ but he’d collect his coat and go. ‘Sorry, I can’t let my cousin down again.’ That fella had so many cousins they could fill a corn exchange. Then Sunday evening would come round and he’d be there to make his customary joke: ‘I’d offer you a lift home, Charles, but I can’t drive.’ For six or seven months, that’s how things went. Until, one Friday, Malcolm wasn’t at the flat and Joyce wouldn’t explain the reasons why.