The blonde, who would put up with a lot for a large gin and orange, stroked absently at her squirrel-fur jacket and patted her coarse platinum flick-ups. She didn’t bother to listen. If she had, she would have heard it before. She was perched on a bar stool and the man patted her knee as he spoke. It wouldn’t cost her a penny. She stared down at his paw resentfully but there was talk of dinner at the Regent Palace (paper napkins, but you couldn’t have everything) and she decided to let the hand slither across the nylon and under the hem of her tight skirt.

A pair of regulars were squirming round her to the bar, smoothly borrowing a ten-bob note from a familiar face in the crowd as they passed.

‘Who are all these people? Your pub’s not your own. Where are they all from, for God’s sake?’ said one of them, a tall, fat man in a big black hat and a poncey pink Indian silk scarf knotted at his neck. And suede shoes. Poof, probably. Only poofs wore suede shoes.

‘Streatham, darling. Streatham Common. I told you we should have gone to the Fitzroy,’ drawled his friend, a rat-faced toff in a covert coat the colour of dishwater and a striped tie so horrible it had to mean something. You got them like that in the shop: debs’ delights with frayed shirtcuffs and stiff collars: pricing cashmere but buying lambswool.

‘Don’t they have any fucking pubs in fucking Streatham?’

Aye-aye. Lang-guage. The smoky room was suddenly short of oxygen as drinkers on all sides sniffed disapprovingly. The landlord’s face flickered a warning and the double act closed down, concentrating on their scrounged gins. Too bloody cold to go looking for another pub.

There were actually some very nice pubs in fucking Streatham. Proper pubs with saloon bars and carpet.

The smelly old woman had started up again.

‘I sa-a-a-aid: You-wouldn’t-like-to-buy-me-a-Drink, would you, duckie?’

Tony had fought his way through the bar and was signalling for Jane to join him at the door. She grabbed her coat from under the bench and slid the handbag down the side of her carrier, taking care not to crush her new outfit. The owner’s name would be inside somewhere. She could sort it out tomorrow lunchtime.