Masharin glared at her.

Curtis said, ‘If it was Vicky she was lookin’ pretty good.’ Whispering: ‘Tall, blonde … last time I saw her she was like a grasshopper.’

I tried to remember. A good-looking grasshopper, even then. I could still remember watching her through my polished lens, dreaming how nice it’d be to kiss her. ‘What were they doing?’ I asked.

‘Looking around. Threw some rubbish in the yard. Got in a car and drove off.’

‘If they come back, I get first go.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Curtis?’ Masharin was looking at him. ‘It’s important to be original.’

‘Sorry?’

She held up his short story. We could see the C- from the back of the room. ‘You have to come up with your own ideas. This man, wandering the underworld … Dante?’

‘But I did my version.’

‘You even used Virgil to lead him along—’ she checked ‘—Lanark Avenue.’

‘That’s what I mean. My version. Hell in the suburbs.’

She didn’t look impressed. ‘It was nearly night, and everyone was coming home …’ She picked up her version of Inferno. ‘Day was departing and the dusk drew on …’

The Cohen girl said, ‘Don’t yer get an E for plagiarism?’

Masharin said: ‘It’s not plagiarism, as such, but, Curtis, I asked for a short story, not a translation.’

He pointed to Colin Davies. ‘But he did First Blood.’

Davies almost stood. ‘Did not.’

Masharin asked, ‘What’s that?’

‘A Sylvester Stallone film.’

‘Is not, Mrs Masharin. I made it all up.’

‘Like I did,’ Curtis demanded.

‘At least I wrote a story.’

‘A lame piece of …’ He stopped, smiling at Masharin.

She said, ‘In contrast, this wonderful piece by Clem Whelan,’ displaying it like it had been shot, and hung on a wall, ‘is an extract from a novel: This Excellent Machine.’

Curtis nudged me. The A was even bigger; you could see it from the moon.

‘You’re writing a novel, Clem?’

‘Yes.’

And she smiled. Not just a like-your-work smile, but something bigger, closer, more intimate. ‘Mr Lawrence watched his birds. Counted their songs. To him, each was an affirmation of the sanctity of life.’

‘Please,’ Curtis grumbled.

‘As long as they sang, things were good. But when they stopped, at dusk, it made him think there was more to night than darkness.’

‘What the hell’s that mean?’ Curtis asked.

Colin Davies said, ‘Is that what you wanted? I could’ve written that.’

‘No, you couldn’t,’ she said. ‘This is writing of the highest calibre. The cats were gathered around the wire, trying to get in, and he shooed them. But they returned, hungry. Dozens, desperate for something to eat, and Mr Lawrence saw this, and was determined to stop them.’

‘You’re in,’ Curtis said.

But I wasn’t even thinking about that. More, how Peter might have been right.