'You want to know what Tony says you are?'

'I don't think it's important/ He shrugged but he could feel the cold at his back and his hand shook. The last tepid tea slopped on to his lap.

'Tony says you're a loser. He's cruel, Tony is. What Tony says is that you're a loser, Malachy, and a failure.'

'I expect in his job he has to make evaluations – probably the right judgement most of the time,'

Malachy said quietly, simply He had not spoken to Tony, the nephew, since the first day. He had kept his distance, had stayed behind his locked door.

'What happened in your life to bring you down here? Must have been something awful. You don't belong with us. Something awful, worse, an earthquake.' She seemed to struggle for the words, and the abrasive independence that was her hallmark wavered. 'Tony says you're a waste of space and I'm not to spend time with you… Was it something I couldn't understand, like a catastrophe?'

He said, 'It's nobody's business but mine. I… '

The clock chimed. He did not wait for the final stroke of six. He was up, out of his chair, and scurrying for the door. He didn't thank her for the tea or the sandwiches. He thought he would be dissected with Dawn that evening at the bingo – and when the next knock came on the common wall, on a Thursday, he would ignore it. He closed her front door behind him, fastened the gate and ran next door to his own refuge.

With the lock turned, the chain across and the bolt up, he sat on the floor and the darkness blanketed him. He did not know that, outside on the walkways and in the alleys, shadows gathered and searched for the price of a wrap of brown to feed a needle.

'I can't come, Millie. I got the flu, pain where I didn't know pain was. I'm sorry.'

Dawn was tall, would once have been beautiful. She had the ebony skin of wet coal, was from Nigeria, and cleaned Whitehall offices. Perhaps her generosity was used, or perhaps Mildred Johnson truly regarded her as a friend – but never as an equal. Her one son was in the merchant marine, a deck-hand for a Panamanian-registered company, and he never came home. Dawn minded her neighbour, and was occasionally thanked for it.