She noticed again the dark ring mark on her finger. She had once been married, perhaps. Or not married but coupled. With someone. More than for just a night or two. Someone who had cared for her, perhaps loved her. Perhaps even did not abuse her.

  A well-dressed man comes over and puts twenty pence in her cup. Once she would have thrown it back at him in disgust. Instead, she nods and politely says thank you. He doesn’t reply.

  The cars cruise by in front of her, intermittently stopping at the traffic lights by the pelican crossing. On such a bright day, people have their car windows open. Perhaps she would have better luck at the crossing. Perhaps she would have enough luck that she could find, sooner or later, a way off the street. She realizes that at the moment, she actually wants to find that way.

  She walks towards the traffic lights. She won’t hassle the drivers, that isn’t her style anymore. She will simply hold her hand out and smile when they stop and ask if they have a few coins to spare. If they shake their heads, she will politely move on to the next car.

  * * *

  There is bubble wrap all over the floor, pulled excitedly from the new bed that has arrived for China. Even though she is going to university in a few months, the arrival of the bed feels important. It is hers; it will occupy her room when she returns during the holidays, it will mark her space. The old bed, still covered in peeling stickers of the Powerpuff Girls and fading unicorns, sits in pieces in the front garden waiting for collection by the local council. Silas has spent the morning putting the new bed together, and now China is reclining on the soft yielding mattress, wondering why she took so long to get rid of the old one. Silas pokes his head through the door of the bedroom.

  ‘Shall we go into town today?’ says Silas cheerfully. ‘The shops are open again.’

  He is in an expansive mood. To China, who is used to his mordant ‘only grown-up in the room’ act, he seems unfamiliar, vaguely unreal.

  Mason appears behind Silas.

  ‘Yes, please,’ says Mason.

  The Mason China remembers would never insert the ‘p’ word into any of his demands, but since the medication has become effective he appears not only to have calmed down but become more civil.

  ‘I’d like to go as well,’ says China, having left the bed, and now standing at the top of the stairs. ‘If that’s okay.’

  The three of them make their way down the stairs, and Veronica enters from the kitchen dressed for summer, in a thin cotton dress with blue daisies printed on it and a wide-brimmed straw hat with a green ribbon round the crown.

  ‘Did someone say we’re going shopping?’ says Veronica.

  ‘I just thought it might be good to go into town,’ said Silas. ‘We’re all sick to death being cooped up in here. We’re finally allowed. Maybe we could get a pizza.’

  ‘A pizza would be good,’ says Veronica.

  ‘Chicken tandoori stuffed crust,’ says Mason.

  ‘Disgusting,’ says China.

  Mason sticks his tongue out at her and China sticks hers out back, putting her hands behind her ears, open-palmed and waggling the fingers and going cross-eyed.

  ‘We’re agreed, then,’ says Silas. ‘Let’s get our stuff and head off in, what, five minutes?’

  ‘Call it ten,’ says Veronica.

  ‘Call it fifteen,’ says China.

  ‘Pizza,’ said Mason.

  ‘I’m going to buy some new clothes,’ says Veronica. She has £60 cash in her purse, the money she took from Vincent Canby at the end of the previous year, which she has kept sacred in her drawer. Today she has decided to liberate it.

  Then Silas does something neither China nor Veronica has seen him do. He takes out a credit card and hands it to Veronica.

  ‘Treat yourself. Anything you want. The code is 7762. We haven’t spent hardly anything for the last three months. Time to indulge. Anyway, it’s your birthday soon. Think of this as an early gift.’

  ‘My God!’

  ‘Don’t go mad, though.’

  He suddenly looks worried.

  She kisses him briefly on the cheek.

  ‘I know better than to take advantage.’

  She resolves to spend no more than a few hundred pounds. Even that will be pushing her luck, knowing Silas. But that should be enough to get her a couple of blouses and maybe a decent pair of shoes.

  * * *

  They approach the town centre, the silver Volvo polished and shining. It was one of the ways Silas had kept himself occupied over the past few months. They have decided to drive the short distance as Silas wants to buy some heavy hardware – a workbench and a vice.

  There isn’t much parking to be had – it seems much of Brighton has had the same idea as the family, as well as day-trippers, released finally from captivity. The two car parks they had tried so far were full and on-street parking impossible as usual.

  ‘I’m getting sick of this,’ says Silas softly after cruising for fifteen minutes looking for a spot.

  ‘Pizza!’ says Mason in a sharp, whiny voice. His calm demeanour, as well as his day’s dose of Ritalin, appear to be wearing off.

  ‘I think there are spaces in that one,’ says Veronica, as they turn the corner into the main road. Sure enough, the illuminated green sign outside the car park shows thirteen spaces free.

  ‘We should have walked,’ says Silas.

  ‘It’ll have to do,’ says Veronica.

  There is a set of lights and a pelican crossing to navigate before they get to the entrance. The lights turn red at the last moment. Silas nearly shoots them, terrified he is going to miss the car park space, but he is as always worried about hidden cameras, which he believes are everywhere, part of the surveillance state he vehemently opposes, so at the last moment he brakes. Mason, China and Veronica are thrown forward in their seats.

  ‘Christ, Silas!’ says Veronica.

  ‘All good,’ mutters Silas.

  The car rests, the engine ticks over, then cuts out to save on carbon imprint.

  ‘Do you have any change?’

  A soft, weary voice comes at Silas’s right shoulder. Silas turns. Without looking at the woman’s face he feels in his pocket for change, but there isn’t any. Nobody uses cash anymore after the virus.

  ‘No, I’m really sorry,’ says Silas, now glancing briefly at the figure to his right. Their eyes meet.

  ‘Sigh,’ says the voice.

  Without another word, he accelerates away, the light still on red. Instead of pulling into the car park, he drives straight past the entrance.

  ‘What are you doing?’ says Veronica.

  ‘Dad!’ says Mason.

  ‘I am sure we can get closer to the shopping centre than this.’

  China looks at him, puzzled.

  ‘That street woman called you Si,’ she says.

  Silas laughs, but it contains a false note.

  ‘No, she didn’t. She said “Sigh”. She was slurring. Probably mad.’

  All of them – Mason, Veronica and China – stare at Silas.

  ‘I don’t know who she was,’ says Silas, unsettled. ‘Whatever she may or may not have said.’

  ‘Then you drive past the car park without stopping after we’d been looking for a space for half an hour. It doesn’t make any sense,’ says China.

  ‘The two events aren’t connected. Correlation isn’t causation.’

  Silas’s pedantic side always rises to the surface when he feels under pressure.

  ‘What’s going on?’ says Veronica.

  ‘Nothing’s going on,’ says Silas, a note of impatience in his voice now. ‘A old crazy woman puts her hand out for some money and makes a sighing noise because I couldn’t give her any money. Then I decided we could find something closer to the centre. And look – there’s a space.’

  There is indeed a space that a Mini has just pulled out of. Silas, sliding into it too quickly, gently collides with the bumper of the car in front.

  ‘Sugar!’

  Veronica looks at China inquiringly. She shrugs. They both know that Silas never rushes his parking. He has never been known to strike any other cars, either stationary or moving, and takes a pride in the fact.

  He backs up quickly and straightens the wheels.

  ‘There we are, then,’ he announces, as if a great thing has been achieved. ‘Everybody out.’

  He leaves the driver’s seat and cursorily examines the bumper of the car he has made contact with.

  ‘No harm done,’ he says unconvincingly. China feels sure she can see a small dent in the other car.

  Across the way there is, to Mason’s delight, a Pizza Express.

  ‘Sick!’

  ‘I am the best dad in the world,’ says Silas, turning away from the scene of the crime.

  Mason jumps out of the back seat. Veronica and China follow them across the road to the restaurant. But Veronica stops at the threshold as Silas holds open the door.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Come on!’ says Silas as Mason breaks away and charges past him into the restaurant.

  ‘No really, I’m fine. And we’ve been under one another’s feet for long enough, don’t you think? Like three months?’

  ‘Okay – let’s forget about the pizza,’ says Silas, feeling irritated but sensing that he needs at this moment to be magnanimous.

  ‘Mason is already in there,’ says Veronica firmly. ‘He’s desperate for a pizza. Anyway, I’m gagging for a bit of retail therapy.’

  She takes Silas’s card out of her pocket and waves it joyfully in front of his face. Silas shrugs.

  ‘Fair enough. Don’t go mad.’

  ‘So you already said. Several times.’

  ‘Meet you at the shopping centre afterwards by the Boots.’

  ‘I’ll WhatsApp you.’

  Once Silas, Mason and China have disappeared into the restaurant, Veronica doubles back and heads towards the crossing where the strange woman had spoken to them through the window.

  * * *

  She finds the woman still working the junction. She is standing at the kerbside, politely asking drivers for change. There are thick streaks of grey in her tangled hair. Veronica pulls a five-pound note from her pocket and, coming from behind the woman, pushes it into her cup.

  ‘Thank you,’ says the woman, turning. There is no flicker of recognition. Veronica guesses that despite the yellowing skin and cold sore on her lip that the woman had been attractive once. There is some light in her eyes that is not yet destroyed. The woman turns back to approach the next car which is slowing before the lights.

  ‘Can I speak to you for a moment?’ says Veronica.

  The woman turns again and looks at her without curiosity.

  ‘Are you from the social?’

  ‘No. I was in the car,’ says Veronica. ‘With the man that you called “Si”.’

  The woman looks at her steadily. Her eyes have become watery.

  ‘Do you want to sit down for a bit?’ says Veronica, indicating a wooden bench on the pavement behind them. The woman hesitates before answering. It is a long while since anyone requested her company. Quietly, almost resignedly, she comes and sits on the bench, still holding her plastic cup. She examines the coins inside, takes out a button and throws it on the pavement. Veronica sits next to her.

  ‘So, what do you want to know?’ says the woman, unwrapping a Twix bar that she produces from her pocket. ‘Lunch,’ she adds, conspiratorially.

  ‘Why did you call him Si?’

  The woman shrugs, finishes removing the wrapper and takes a bite. She begins chewing slowly. Now she looks up as if addressing a small patch of air in front of her face.

  ‘He reminded me of someone.’

  ‘Who did he remind you of?’

  ‘Someone called Si.’

  She takes another bite of the Twix and wipes a crumb from her parched lips.

  ‘Short for Simon?’

  ‘Silas.’

  Veronica looks at her shoes, which are a pair of old black trainers with the sole peeling and bird shit on the upper of the left shoe.

  ‘But the man in the car was fatter and he didn’t have so much hair. No beard. Also the Silas I knew wouldn’t have just driven off like that. What is his name actually? The man in the car?’ says the woman, still chewing and looking up for the first time at Veronica. Her eyes are the colour of cigarette ash.

  ‘Silas,’ says Veronica.

  The woman stops chewing and crumples the empty Twix packet in her hand. Her face changes, darkens, droops.

  ‘There was a boy,’ said the woman eventually. ‘In the back seat.’

  ‘Mason,’ said Veronica.

  The woman nods.

  ‘Macy,’ she says.

  * * *

  Veronica, to fill the time as much as anything else, heads for the shops and, only half concentrating, begins shopping. She doesn’t really notice what she is buying, but she registers that it is expensive. Normally she doesn’t go much beyond Jigsaw for her clothes, but now she goes into Armani, Prada, Max Mara, savouring the churchlike atmosphere of faux-reverence and the ridiculous liveried doormen.

  She spends £1,200 on an outfit. All of it suits her perfectly, she thinks. She is astonished with herself. She has never spent more than a few hundred pounds on a shopping trip before. She is certainly not used to spending Silas’s money without a knot of guilt and anxiety in her stomach.

  She has received a text message from Silas, asking her to meet back at the parked car. When she gets there, China and Mason are in the back and there is a space for her in the front. She throws her bags into the back, then seats herself next to Silas. Silas and China chatter with Mason, who has bought a handheld computer game that China is playing with him. They giggle as Silas turns to the wheel and they start the journey back. Silas concentrates on driving as usual, but after a while he notices how uncharacteristically quiet Veronica is being.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks without taking his eyes off the road.

  ‘I’m perfectly fine.’

  ‘What did you buy?’

  ‘Just some clothes. A jacket. A skirt. Two blouses. A pair of shoes.’

  They stop at some traffic lights. Silas cranes his neck to look at the bags on the seat behind. He looks anxious.

  ‘Quite a haul.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘Expensive?’

  ‘Not for what it was. The shoes were a bit pricy.’

  ‘How much.’

  ‘£600,’ says Veronica.

  Veronica sees his Adam’s apple work its way up and down.

  ‘Jesus! For everything, I hope.’

  ‘Just for the shoes.’

  Veronica, who has been holding her handbag on her lap, reaches into it and takes out a packet of cigarettes. She slides one from the pack and lights it. A cloud of smoke drifts from her mouth and into Silas’s face.

  ‘Veronica!’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ says Veronica sweetly. She winds the window half down and continues to smoke.

  ‘Mum, are you smoking?’ says China.

  ‘Yup,’ says Veronica, taking another deep drag. China shrugs and goes back to playing the computer game. The lights change to green, but Silas doesn’t move the car. Instead, he stares at Veronica in astonishment.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m smoking a cigarette, Silas. What are you doing?’

  He pulls over to the side of the road, reaches behind him and pulls out one of Veronica’s shopping bags, inside which is an elegant cardboard box.

  ‘Manolo Blahnik. Crimson leather. They’re really quite beautiful,’ says Veronica.

  China and Mason, not listening, carry on playing the game in the back. Veronica notices, with satisfaction, that Silas’s lips have gone white.

  ‘Then there was the jacket, which was £500. And, oh my God, the skirt. So beautiful. And not that bad for what it was. £300.’

  ‘Have you gone entirely insane?’

  ‘I don’t know. Have I?’

  ‘Where are you getting all this money from?’

  ‘From your credit card. You told me to treat myself.’

  China finally looks up.

  ‘Mum. That cigarette stinks.’

  ‘Sorry, darling.’ Veronica flings it out of the window – on the driver’s side. It narrowly misses Silas’s face.

  ‘Silas looks like he’s about to have a conniption. Is he alright?’ says China, still only mildly interested.

  ‘He’s fine. Aren’t you, Silas?’

  Silas says nothing. China and Mason return to playing the game. When finally Silas speaks again, it is in a hiss.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘All that stuff has to go back.’

  ‘I suppose that would be possible. So long as it’s undamaged.’

  Silas shoots a hard look at her, then returns his gaze to the road.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I’ve put a tiny cigarette burn into each one of them. Not that noticeable, but the shop will notice them. Except the shoes. I liked those too much to actually harm them.’

  ‘That makes no sense.’

  His eyes are bulging like grapes.

  ‘Why would you set fire to the clothes you just spent hundreds of pounds on?’

  ‘Oh, spite, I suppose. Also because now you can’t take them back and get a refund.’

  ‘But that’s crazy.’

  ‘Not everything that doesn’t make sense to you is crazy, Silas.’

  * * *

  When they arrive home, Mason and China emerge first from the car and head up the path. As Veronica gets out and moves to follow them, Silas grabs her arm.

  ‘Let go, Silas. You’re hurting me.’

  He tightens his grip.

  ‘What are you playing at?’

  ‘What are you playing at, Silas?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t you? I went back and found that woman who talked to you at the traffic lights.’