On the weekends when her brother came to Maidstone, she’d put on her most shrugging attitude to ward him off. But Charlie always knew when she’d been crying or when her heart was limping. Now and then, he’d raised Mal’s name in conversation and she’d batted it away. ‘Some things don’t turn out as you were hoping, do they?’ she’d said, pleasantly enough. ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ These words had been accepted for exactly what they were, a means of skirting round the problem. But she’d lost control over her temper sometimes, snapping at him, getting irked by strangers for the slightest look. She’d drunk more than she should’ve, too. She’d got them kicked out of the cinema for reasons she could scarcely call to mind a few hours after, which had spooked the lad. One Sunday he’d gone home to Aunt Helen early and the next weekend he’d said he wasn’t going to visit any more. Well, that had given her a jolt. She’d glimpsed her future days without him and it horrified her. Lying in the gutter with a sluice of rain and horse shit, begging for spare pennies from the passers-by. Her brother all grown up and far away, with better people in his life to love. She’d got herself in order, after that.

There were bills she’d been ignoring – first thing that she’d done was pay them off. Any shops that had her name on tick, she’d settled with them, too. What little she had left, she’d put to cleaning all her pillowslips and bedsheets at the bagwash. And she’d allowed Mal in the flat the next time he’d come knocking in the night with something for her. ‘Glad you’re feeling better now,’ he’d said. ‘You know I’ll always see you right, Joy, don’t you? It’s going to work out for the best.’ His left hand had been wrapped up in a bandage, with a blurry disc of blood there, on the knuckle side.

‘What bit you? Guard dog?’

He’d studied it, as though he’d clean forgotten. ‘Nah, barbed wire,’ he’d mumbled. ‘Not so sure the job was worth it in the end, but oh well … You’ll take this motor for me now, then?’

‘Yeah. Who wants it?’

‘Munce.’

‘All right.’

‘Good girl. I’ll just leave them here.’ He’d tossed the keys on to the table, looked about the flat and nodded. ‘OK. I suppose I’ll ring you, then.’

Before he’d reached the door, she’d said, ‘I’m short, Mal. If you’ve got a quid to tide me over. Bus fare and all that.’

He’d fished his wallet out and handed her a ten-bob note. ‘I’ll get you more another time.’

She’d taken it and watched him go.

For a while, their new arrangement hadn’t been much different, excepting that she didn’t have to flannel herself down before she went to sleep or listen to him breathing through his mouth the long night through. A few days after she’d dropped off a car for him, she’d find an envelope pushed underneath her door. Ample cash inside to keep her in the workless state she’d grown accustomed to, but never quite enough to last the month. She’d become uneasy in the gaps between Mal’s visits. Weeks could pass without a glimpse of him or any ringing of the phone. Then, just as she’d be getting changed for bed and drawing down the kitchen blind, he’d reappear. Each time looking twice as harried, flabby at the waist. Hair all tinder dry and thin. Scratches round his collar. Once, there’d been a split in his top lip, gone plump and scabby. ‘You need to eat less dripping and more greens,’ she’d said. ‘That shirt’s not going to fit you for much longer.’