“What’s the hurry, Joey?”

“Now, Timmy!”

No doubt about it: the Jack Russell was the best. You could throw your hat at the rest of them. There wouldn’t be a rat alive within a mile of a Jack Russell’s home.

“Joey! Easy there! I’m not as quick as I was.”

Her hand tightened on his arm. He thought of the times they had made their way down these footpaths, along this stretch of the canal, in all weathers. Fifty years and more. There’d always been courting couples here but it had never been so sleazy, so dirty. He remembered the white rings of the condoms discarded by the path.

“Honestly. Do you ever see the swans here of a summer’s evening any more? Not on your life, I’m telling you. They’re gone too. That’s how smart they are. After eight o’clock, even the swans know the writing’s on the bloody wall here. If only the other animals… Ah, what’s the use.”

She stopped and took a deep breath.

“Those things,” she said. “The rubbers? Is that what you mean?”

He looked down at her. All this smut on the telly: safe sex, etcetera. Was she smiling?

“Do you have to talk like that? Do you?”

She clutched at his arm again. She was breathing hard when they gained the footpath. He looked back down at the water. Mary murmured something between wheezes. There was violet on the canal now. They’d waited until the evening so that the bloody traffic and noise was gone, so as they could take a simple walk down by the canal. Was that asking too much, not to have to put up with chancers coming by looking for a bit of how’s-your-father? Drugs. Something stirred in his stomach and burrowed in behind his ribs. He’d seen them the other day too, with their skirts up around their backsides. Standing there smoking, staring back at him; sneering, bold as brass: brassers.