He stretched his arms above his head and yawned. He’d never been a good sleeper and last night he’d tossed and turned for hours. He shouted up to her. ‘Suse, want a lift or are you driving to work yourself?’ His wife appeared at the door clipping in her silver hooped earrings. ‘No, I’ll drive today. I need to go to the bank, and I’ve got a few clients booked in this morning. And then I’m going to meet Sadie. I’ve not seen her for a bit and she’s having a hard time again so I said I’d meet her even though we’re busy today. It’ll help, I reckon, if we can have a bit of a chat.’

Donny picked up his car keys and shook his head. ‘Tell me when Sadie isn’t having a hard time. Maybe if she kept her legs shut then she wouldn’t have all the ball ache she gets. I’ve said it a hundred times – no man’s going to have any respect for a woman who’s as easy as she is. She’ll sleep with them before they’ve even bought her a drink. She’s had more pricks than a second-hand dartboard.’

Susan snapped back at him, unhappy that he was dissing one of her girls when she never slagged off his mates. And there was plenty she could have said about the riff-raff he’d hung out with over the years. Womanisers, gamblers, pissheads – and the rest. He was bang out of order. She glared at him, nostrils flaring. ‘Piss off, Donny. If she was a bloke, you’d be patting her on the back and shaking her hand. Sadie is just looking for love, she’s mixed up. She reads the signs wrong, thinks every man she meets is the one she’ll end up marrying. It’s not her fault if they’re just pretending to be into her, is it? Have a bit of sympathy, she’s not been herself lately.’

Donny sucked on his gums, trying not to laugh. He knew he should back off but couldn’t help himself, he had to carry on adding fuel to the fire. ‘Yeah right. Tell her to keep her knickers on and she might find a man who’ll stick around longer than the first date.’ Donny could see he’d overstepped the mark, she was about to lose it. He edged cautiously towards the door, half expecting a shoe to be chucked at his head. He could sense another lecture coming; time to go. He walked over and pecked her on the cheek, but she pushed him away, still fuming.