"Let me do that, gran." I stepped to the side of the car and pulled the tarpaulin back until it lay crumpled on the boot, revealing that the car had a missing rear window. More dust revolved in the light from outside, turning Grandma Margot into a seated silhouette, her almost transparent hair shining like a halo.

She sighed. I looked at the car. It was long and quite beautiful, in a recently-old-fashioned way. Beneath the patina of dust it was a very dark green. The roof above the missing rear window was battered and dented, as was the exposed part of the boot lid.

"Poor old thing," I whispered, shaking my head.

Grandma Margot sat upright. "It or me?" she said sharply.

«Gran…» I said, tutting. I was aware that she could see me very well, sunlit from behind her, while all I could see of her was a dark shape, a subtraction of the light.

"Anyway," she said, relaxing and poking at one of the car's wire wheels with her walking stick. "What's all this nonsense about a matter of principle?"

I turned away, rubbing my fingers along the chrome guttering over a rear door. "Well… dad's angry at me because I told him I believed in… God, or in something, anyway." I shrugged, not daring to look at her. "He won't… well, I won't… We're not talking to each other, so I won't come into the house."

Grandma Margot made a clucking noise with her mouth. That's it?"

I nodded, glancing at her. "That's it, gran."

"And your father's money; your allowance?"

"I — " I began, then didn't know how to put it.

"Prentice; how are you managing to survive?"

"I'm managing fine," (I lied.) "On my grant." (Another lie.) "And my student loan." (Yet another lie.) "And I'm doing some bar work." (Four in a row!) I couldn't get a bar job. Instead I'd sold Fraud Siesta, my car. It had been a small Ford and kind of lazy about starting. People used to imply it looked battered, but I just told them it came from a broken garage. Anyway, that money was almost gone now, too.