Despite his own shortcomings in size, Terry is far bigger than Dominic, so when he stands square in front of him, when he lifts Dominic’s chin in his palm, and when he lowers his face close to Dominic’s ear, it looks threatening.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Dominic coughs as the smoke on Terry’s breath engulfs him. “Nowhere.”

Like a bullet rebounding, Terry slaps the back of his head.

“I was just with Jakub. In the park,” Dominic corrects quickly. “Weren’t doing anything, I meant.”

“That stinking Pole? You still mates with him?”

Dominic dares a glance at his mother. He’s looking for help. But she doesn’t like Jakub either. His mother is only a cleaner, but Dominic used to regale Simone with descriptions of how she sets Jakub extra homework, and teaches him piano, and sews his clothes, and how they have a bowl on their kitchen table always teeming with fruit. Jakub is Dominic’s best friend and she knows he goes to his house, despite her disdain, pretending to be elsewhere. He doesn’t invite Jakub back to theirs.

“Leave him,” Simone tells Terry gently.

“Gotta be careful with Poles,” Terry says. “Only gonna shaft you. You see them, don’t you, Dom? In collaboration with the capitalists? Working cheap, ten to a flat, sending the money out of England, making it so that we, the English, we can’t get a proper wage, feeding the fools at the top, just like they planned it. Hand in hand, aren’t they? You best be careful with your Polak.”

Dominic doesn’t answer. He stands with his shoulders hunched, making himself even smaller.

“You’re meant to be home anyway, aren’t you? It’s your day to do laundry. See, he’s already steering you wrong, that Polak.”

“Sorry,” Dominic says now in dangerous monotone. He goes to the bedrooms where he gathers clothes from the floor and the wash baskets and brings them back to the kitchen where the washing machine is and where Terry is waiting. Carefully he sorts the clothes, and loads a pile of light-coloured items into the machine. Simone is making dinner a few feet away and attempts to stroke him on the back as he passes her. He responds with a small smile, an attempt at assurance, Don’t worry Mum, but she should have known better, she should have left him. Terry is still watching.

“Know where this dense cow’s been today?” Terry asks him suddenly, looming over the kitchen counter. “Know where? Ask her, go on, ask her!”

Dominic glances fearfully now at his mother. The panic in his eyes is sudden and clear, and she knows why – he thinks she’s told Terry about the meeting at school. He thinks she’s betrayed him.

“Where’ve you been, Mum?” Dominic asks, his voice quiet, trembling.

Terry prods her, laughing. “Go on, tell him, tell him.”

“I started my job,” she says, almost as quietly as her son.

“In a fancy blazer no less, didn’t she, for a gym. Ooh, look at Miss Hoity Toity. Bet that’s what you wanted them to think, didn’t you? That you’re something special? Eh?”