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said. ‘I’m buying.’ I’d have to come back later—Joss was making me conspicuous.
    ‘What about your old friend?’
    ‘I don’t think anyone at this address is going to want a reunion with me. I shouldn’t have come.’
    ‘I don’t want coffee,’ he said, ‘but I could murder a can of Special Brew.’
    I looked at Electra. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘it’s not my fault.’
    He led the way with unerring instinct towards the nearest off-licence. He moved quickly. I was carrying my back-pack and bedroll and followed more slowly, so, turning for a last look at the mews, I saw the woman from last night come out of the house with the yellow door. She checked her bag for keys—a Louis Whatsisname handbag—and hurried out of the mews to Harrison Road where she was picked up and driven away by someone I couldn’t see in a sexy red German car.
    It’s her house, I thought, of course it’s her house. I used to check my bag for keys in exactly the same way when I left for work. When I had a handbag, a house and a job. And I too used to sneak a last look at the bedroom window when I’d left Gram sleeping on his back in the middle of my bed.
    I could soak a newspaper in alcohol, set light to it and stuff it through the letterbox in the yellow front door. When Gram came stumbling out, coughing and retching from the smoke, I would be waiting and I’d clock him over the head with a manhole cover.
    ‘Do you want a fucking drink or what?’ Joss said, striding ahead. Electra hung back looking miserable. She knows what I’m thinking.
    ‘I’m jangling,’ I told her. ‘Because my mother would be alive today if it wasn’t for what that Devil did to me.’ Electra stared at me with sorrowful eyes and I knew I had her sympathy.
    ‘Got any money?’ Joss stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into him.
    ‘Not much,’ I said. You don’t want to tell him how much you’ve got unless you’re prepared to put up with his company till it’s all gone. In that, he has a lot in common with Gram Attwood.
    We clubbed together to buy a six-pack of Special Brew. It isn’t Algerian Red, I thought; I’m not breaking my promise. Beer is more thirst-quenching than wine but it causes painful bloat. Then there’s the question of where to pee, which is another problem with beer. Joss can do it in the underpass but I can’t. Knowing what to drink and where to pee are just two of the skills I’ve learned the hard way. That is why I stick to my own territory. I’m lost in South Kensington.
    By the time I found somewhere near Gloucester Road tube station I was nearly bursting. I hate the smell of wee, but I stayed in there for ages. I wanted Joss to get fed up waiting for me and bugger off. I had the place to myself because any woman who came in took one look at me and walked straight out again. The dirty spotted mirror told me why: multiple layers of clothes, bedroll and backpack bent me out of shape. I stoop and hulk. My face is bluey-pink from broken veins and the weather. The grizzled hair that escapes from under my woolly beanie is an uncontrollable frizz. Four years ago I went to the hairdresser every five or six weeks. I had it layered and streaked with hi and lo lights for my court appearance—as if looking my best would save me. But women get into the most trouble when they’re looking their best. I met Gram Attwood when I was looking my best. That sort of trouble would never ever happen to me today.
    I couldn’t help myself. I cried like a baby. I often do when I’m stupid enough to take a peek in a mirror.
    ‘Dogs don’t get ugly with age,’ I wept to Electra, ‘so why should I? Is it cos I look after you better than I look after myself?’
    ‘Don’t bring me into this,’ she said. Her amber eyes are more beautiful than any you’ll see on a super-model. She stood on her hind legs with her front paws on the wash-basin and I gave her a drink from the running tap. Why don’t greyhounds get bags under their