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buxom insolence, long auburn hair and wide sensual mouth ruined by lipstick. ‘What do you want?’
    â€˜Nothing, except a couple of quid to go to the pictures. I’ll go schizoid with boredom if I stay here.’
    â€˜Get this room straight first,’ he said.
    â€˜Clear up your own mess. I’m not a skivvy.’
    Enid’s voice rang out. ‘Don’t talk to your father like that.’
    â€˜I’ll clean it up when I come back,’ she said. ‘What about Maria and Catalina?’
    â€˜Probably hiding in the cellars,’ Handley grinned.
    â€˜All I want,’ said Mandy, ‘is approximately three hundred quid for a secondhand Mini. That’s not much to ask for, is it?’
    â€˜I’ve told you approximately three hundred times the answer’s no. You cost me fifty quid for an abortion last year, and that was enough pin-money for a while.’ But even while talking he took pound notes from his pocket, as if held up at gunpoint. ‘Get going. Don’t let me see you before tea-time.’
    â€˜I wish you two would settle your differences in a civilised way,’ she said, unable to move. ‘I hate it when you do this to each other. I suppose it’s the only way you can show love, but it gets me down. I’ll set the furniture on its legs, but don’t expect me to clean the blood up.’
    Handley’s fist struck the dresser, seemed to break every bone, even those in his toes. ‘I’ll murder you when you come back!’ he roared, his grey face through the door she’d nipped out of.
    â€˜You asked for that,’ Enid said righteously, pulling the table upright. ‘You’ve never hit them yet, and you see what happens when you try?’
    â€˜I bloody-well miss,’ he said, numbed by the pain. ‘By God, the fat little trollop had better not come back too soon. My hand’s finished. I’ll never be able to paint again. What shall I tell Teddy? I’m ruined. And it’s no laughing matter. I can’t move it. Look.’ The back of it was blue and swollen, a short, dark cut in one place. He leaned it against the cool wall and pressed hard.
    â€˜Do a bit of work,’ she said, ‘and forget it.’ Bleak sunlight planted itself through the window. He swept smashed plates into a dustpan, rubble chuting musically into the plastic waste-bucket. Taking up the broken chair he opened the window and threw it out onto the quagmire garden. ‘That’s that,’ he said, as if after an hour’s good work.
    â€˜That’s that,’ she said, enraged. ‘But it isn’t.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t want it to be, either,’ he said, lighting two cigarettes and passing her one. ‘I wouldn’t want all this to be for nothing. As forty-year-old Romeo said to his dear Juliet across the Sunday dinner-table. “What did you expect?” – before dodging the loaded teapot. They were in love though, I suppose, bless ’em.’ He dropped his cigarette into the sink, and slid an arm around her. ‘Every word we say is true,’ he said, ‘between us. But it doesn’t matter. It can’t touch my love, nor yours.’ She said nothing, no bitterness left, words crushed as they kissed, unable to withdraw from the black infesting lust.

Chapter Six
    Mandy fastened her leather coat and ran down the muddy lane. When far enough from the house she walked, and took out the four notes her father had pushed at her, enough to get to Boston and back, and buy a meal for herself and Ralph. It was just after two by her watch, solid gold that Handley had bought in London and swore cost forty quid – though she knew he’d doubled the price on his way back just to impress her.
    Since his success she’d wondered which was worse, being the daughter of a famous artist, or of a bone-idle penniless no-good. Certainly his fame hadn’t got her the Mini she craved