Beyond Black. Hilary Mantel

you got that from? You poxy little poxer.’

      Al said, ‘Keef, does she mean me?’

      Keith wiped his sweating forehead. It made you sweat, bouncing a woman a dozen times by the short hair of her head. ‘Yes. No,’ he said. ‘She means to say poxy little boxer. She can’t talk, sweetheart, she don’t know who she’s talking to, her brain’s gone, what she ever had of it.’

      ‘Who’s Gloria?’ she asked.

      Keith made a hissing through his teeth. He tapped one fist into his opposite palm. For a moment she thought he was going to come after her, so she backed up against the sink. The cold edge of it dug into her back; her hair dripped, blood and water, down her T-shirt. Later she would tell Colette, I was never so frightened as then; that was my worst moment, one of the worse ones anyway, that moment when I thought Keef would knock me to kingdom come.

      But Keith stepped back. ‘Here,’ he said. He thrust the tea towel into her hand. ‘Keep at it,’ he said. ‘Keep it clean.’

      ‘Can I stay off school?’ she said, and Keith said, yes, she’d better. He gave her a pound note and told her to yell out if she saw a dog loose again.

      ‘And will you come and save me?’

      ‘Somebody’ll be about.’

      ‘But I don’t want you to strangle it,’ she said, with tears in her eyes. ‘It’s Blighto.’

      The next time she recalled seeing Keith was a few months later. It was night, and she should have been in bed as nobody had called her out. But when she heard Keith’s name she reached under her mattress for her scissors, which she always kept there in case they should be needed. She clutched them in one hand; with the other she held up the hem of the big nightie that was lent her as a special favour from her mum. When she came scrambling down the stairs, Keith was standing just inside the front door; or at least some legs were, wearing Keith’s trousers. He had a blanket over his head. Two men were supporting him. When they took off the blanket she saw that every part of his face looked like fatty mince, oozing blood. (‘Oh, this mince is fatty, Gloria!’ her mother would say.) She called out to him, ‘Keef, that needs stitching!’ and one of the men swooped down on her and wrenched the scissors out of her hand. She heard them strike the wall, as the man flung them; looming above her, he pushed her into the back room and slammed the door. Next day a voice beyond the wall said, ‘Hear Keef got mashed up last night. Tee-hee. As if he ain’t got troubles enough.’

      She believed she never saw Keith again, but she might have seen him and just not recognised him; it didn’t seem as if he’d have much left, by way of original features. She remembered how, the evening of the dog bite, once her head had stopped bleeding, she had gone out to the garden. She followed the furrows dug by the dog’s strong hind legs, as Keith dragged him away from the house, and Blighto twisted to look back. Not until it rained hard did the ruts disappear.

      At that time Alison was saving up for a pony. One day she went up to the attic to count her money. ‘Ah dear,’ said Mrs McGibbet, ‘the lady your mother has been up here, darlin’, raiding your box that was your own peculiar property. The coins she’s tipped into her open purse, and the one single poor note she has tucked away in her brassiere. And not a thing I could do to stop her, my rheumatics being aggravated by the cold and damp, for by the time I was up and out of my corner, she had outstripped me.’