“The thing is,” he said. “Even without that question, even if things are okay for the boy, and in the family, we can’t live our lives like this, we can’t live scared, we can’t just let them do this to us.”

“I agree,” said Veronica again. “It’s better to be doing something.” She said this pointedly, and for a moment both of them were cut short by a joint awareness of other things un-acted upon, unsaid. But they pushed it together aside.

“Let’s go round.” George took her hand and pulled her gently to the side of the bed.

“What? Now?”

“Yes. Let’s go together. Let’s be calm and pleasant, but let’s let them know that this isn’t okay. And that we’re not frightened of them.”

“Um, I am a little bit frightened of them,” laughed Veronica nervously, confessing.

Like George, it was rare for her to acknowledge any vulnerability. Like George, she hadn’t for the past year been able to do it. Even in the midst of their conversation, the epiphany of this caught Veronica’s breath a little. For months she’d been waiting for her husband to notice her tears, her darkness, to acknowledge it, her failure, their failure; but she had seen his darkness just as plainly as her own, and had also said nothing.

“I am scared,” she dared again.

The simple statement of this was transforming. George’s face altered in a way she hadn’t seen for a long time. Softening. He looked at her with a fresh attentiveness.

“That kills me,” he said. “I hate that you feel that way in our home. I wish you didn’t. But, it’s all the more reason to confront them, I think. Come on, let’s do it together. I won’t let anything happen.”

He was squeezing her hand as he said this and she felt that old surge of faith, and hope, and solidity.

“Okay,” she breathed. “Okay, but I’m taking the panic button.” It had come as part of their shiny new alarm system, no extra charge. When the security company had offered it, she’d thought it reminiscent of heist movies, or futuristic novels, but apparently for such houses these days, it was standard.

George shook his head, amused. “You’re not going to need the panic button.”

“I hope not,” she smiled, pulling on some tracksuit bottoms, but she slipped it off her bedside table and into her pocket nonetheless.

They stood on the doorstep. They had already rung twice and George had just pressed the bell again. The night had turned cold and Veronica was pleased she had a jumper, an extra layer of padding between herself and the elements. Her legs itched beneath the cotton, but she kept hold of George’s arm.

“How do you think he stands it?” she whispered, gesturing to the downstairs neighbour’s flat.

“There’s a floor between his bedroom and their living room,” George replied. “We get the worst of it.”

“Still,” she shrugged.

The door opened. Bleary eyed, just inside the threshold, Terry leaned against the frame, his chest emblazoned red with an Arsenal strip, his feet bare. “You’re not pizza,” he laughed loudly, a slight spray of spit winging its way towards them.