‘They’ll last another coupla years. What’s the point?’

‘You can’t eat properly.’ She stood, gathered the plates and went into the kitchen. ‘Clem, get your uniform on—I gotta drop your sister too.’

Pop took out his bottom plate, inspected it, licked it and put it back in.

‘That’s disgusting,’ Jen said.

He spat out both plates, pulled back his lips and did his best white pointer.

‘Pop!’

He laughed, then put them back in. ‘Happen to you one day.’

‘I brush my teeth.’

‘So did I. None of this was my fault, was it, Fay?’ Then he leaned forward, for the familiar story. Usually we’d tell him we’d heard it, but not today. ‘When I was nineteen this fella told my mum I had gum disease, and all me teeth’d have to come out. Mum said, all of them? Yes, missus. Sooner the better. I can do the lot for ten quid, but I gotta do ’em today. Today? Yep. They get infected, could turn septic.’

I sat forward. ‘And your mum believed him?’

‘Yes. Pair of pliers, thirty minutes later it was all over.’

Jen didn’t look convinced. ‘Then what?’

‘Then he said, Here, pop these in.’ He took them out again.

‘Pop!’

‘Dad, put them in!’

He did as he was asked. ‘Same pair … fifty years. Not bad, eh?’

I returned to my room, my uniform, my bag full of lovingly covered books. As I got ready I heard Pop say, ‘… she was a fuckin’ Catholic too.’

Mum: ‘Who?’

‘That Ellman woman. And he did her for the same price.’

‘That’s horrible,’ Jen said.

‘Way it was done back then. She couldn’t have afforded to keep a kiddy.’

It seemed strange, that he’d lost track of me, but remembered some girl from fifty years before.

‘Eileen Ellman. And she coulda died, too, the way he did it.’

‘How?’ Jen said.

‘He had a concoction.’

I sat looking out my window. Another year: more of the same. There was a machine that I’d be fed into and processed, filled with information and a shred, perhaps, of understanding. For this to happen I’d need a clean uniform and polished shoes and a diary to record my daily output as a function of daily input. I’d need to be on time, and have the right attitude, whatever that was, so I could absorb the same stuff another ten thousand kids were absorbing. And this little machine would chug, all year, until it ran out of petrol. Then it’d stop, and someone would say, Ah, yes, slight effort, and give me a card that said ‘63’ and tell me what university courses 63 could lead to.