Veronica’s first thought was to point out that actually, it wasn’t only the neighbours ruining their lives, it wasn’t solely their fault that this wasn’t the ‘family home’ they’d dreamed of; but she held the musing back, wondering why such barbed bullets shot from her so frequently. She set about undressing. And now came her second thought: George had actually acknowledged a flaw in their existence. Even if he was talking only about the neighbours and ignoring the bigger, baby-shaped blemish, until now, such an admission had been beyond him. His bravery touched her, and, “The boy was here,” she told him.

“What?”

“The boy from next door. Dominic. He was here just now. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Are you crazy? You let some strange kid into our home in the middle of the night? Are you alright? What did he want?”

“He was injured. And he’s not strange. Actually, that’s not true, he’s very strange, but he’s not a stranger. I’ve spoken to him a bunch of times.”

George sat up properly now, resting against cream waffle, and switched on the light. “What do you mean he was injured?”

“He’d slashed his hand. He said it was from cutting a potato, but who knows. There certainly wasn’t an adult looking after him. Nobody had helped him with the cut. He’s only eleven you know.”

George looked towards the adjoining wall. “Do you think Idiot Man did it to him?”

“God, I hope not. I’ve no idea. But he’s gone back there now. And—” she paused to let the noise from next door make her point. “Well, they’re still raving.”

“I think we should do something,” George said again.

“About the boy?”

“The boy, the baby, the woman, the noise.”

“Maybe the woman’s part of it,” mused Veronica. “I thought, after that first night, that she might be the one in trouble, but why doesn’t she comfort the baby? Why isn’t she looking after her son? Or maybe she is in trouble and that’s why she can’t look after them.”

Female shrieks resonated on cue through the bedroom wall. “It doesn’t sound like she’s in much trouble,” said George. “But now we know the boy’s been hurt, I think we have a duty to do something. Maybe that’s the reason we’re next to them, the reason for all of this.”

Veronica smiled fondly at his attempts to rationalise the universe. “I agree. I keep thinking about that too, but you know, once you make that concern a formal thing, you set a whole process in motion. There’ll be social workers and potential intervention, and what if it ends up splitting the family, and we’re wrong?”

“What if we’re not wrong?”

Veronica sat on the bed next to George, her stomach tightening. “That would be bad,” she said. “If we did nothing.” There were other times in her life when she’d done nothing, too. Her father’s friend from Oman sprang again, uncalled into her mind. So did her English teacher. And a boy from the sixth form. And– “I don’t know. I don’t know what we should do.” She looked to George.