When Pat turned around, the office was empty; Lance had walked out without a sound as usual. He was good at that, was Lance. He knew it was the barb about the bus that had made him go. Lance hated that to be mentioned in any way. Pat knew he wondered if people still talked about it, remembered it. The girl he had thrown off the bus was the only person who seemed to have forgiven him; she came round with her mum and she always said hello to him. The world was full of strange things but that, he had to admit, was one of the strangest things he had ever come across.

Spider and Mackie were in a lock-up garage in Bethnal Green. The whole floor space was covered in black bin bags and the bin bags were full of cannabis. The smell was overpowering but, where they were, it only masked the smell of engine oil and overflowing bins.

As they waited for the buyers to arrive, they sat on a bench and smoked a joint together. It was a heavy smoke, all buds and no seeds. The first few hits gave them the spaced-out feeling that was the whole point of smoking dope in the first place. It was what dub reggae was for and why junk food was invented.

They were both aware of every noise, no matter how quiet, and they felt the heaviness that seemed to crawl all over their bodies while they waited.

'That's a good fucking draw, Dad.'

Spider nodded in agreement. He was still taking short, quick puffs, determined to prolong the high for as long as possible.

'Too good to sell to this fucking shower, anyway.'

They both laughed then. Most of the dope they sold outside the community was not up to the standard they had come to expect.

'I love the quiet, don't you? It seems to seep into your skin and lets you become a part of it all.'

Spider nodded once more; he knew exactly what the boy meant.

It was like becoming at one with the world. Unless someone interrupted that, of course, and then it was a different high altogether.

'You seen anything of Jimmy Brick lately?'

Spider shook his head again. It was a question he was being asked on a far too regular basis.

'Why you keep asking me that?'

Mac sighed. 'Just interested, that's all. I know he's working with Pat. But I thought you were mates, that's all.'

'We are, or perhaps I should say, were. Since he came back from Spain, he's not the same somehow. I don't know what it is, boy.'

Mackie looked at his father then and he saw the heaviness of his dreads and the glittering of his dark eyes. He was well stoned.

'You didn't keep in touch then when he was away?'

'No. I didn't even know where he was, to be honest. After Patrick died. It was all fucked up you know. He didn't seem to have anything on paper, even my partnerships with him were fucking disputed. He was a shrewd man but he wasn't expecting to die, was he? So, like many a man before him, he was investing his poke and living off the proceeds. With people like us, it's the equivalent to an overdraft. There was a lot of fucking doubting and fighting over it. Brewster won because he had the biggest crew behind him and, of course, he looked like he was avenging the death. A death that he had actually had a hand in arranging.'

Mac listened to his father with interest.

'How come you wanted me back on the scene so suddenly?'

Spider was taken aback at the words. 'What the fuck do you mean?'

'What I say. You had a new family, didn't you? You paid for us but you didn't really see much of me until I grew up. I used to wonder where you were, you know, wonder what you were doing. Is it because my mum was white?'

'What the fuck you on about, boy? All my kids are taken care of and you never went without anything that you needed. Your mother was the fucking bugbear there, her and her father, who, incidentally, hated me from the moment I knocked on his front door.'

Spider was laughing again. It was the loud and boisterous laugh of the very stoned.

'Don't you tell yourself things that never happened, OK? You were my firstborn and I loved you from the moment I saw you.'

'You've got three boys and we're all called Eustace. Don't you think that's fucking strange? Because, to be perfectly honest, Dad, I do.'

Spider shrugged nonchalantly. 'No, actually, I don't. Now stop this stupid fucking talk. I can hear a car outside, the dealers have arrived.' He didn't say anything else to his son but the conversation had unsettled him.

Lil was with the kids watching a film and as Lance came in the room Annie jumped up, as always, to get him a drink of some description.

'What you watching?' He didn't ask anyone in particular, this was how he communicated when his mother was in the room with him.

Colleen, who was lying on the sofa with her legs across her mother's lap, answered him. 'An Officer and a Gentleman. It's really good.'

He sat down on one of the armchairs and Annie brought him in a glass of beer. He took it with a nod and Lil had to concentrate to block him out of her mind. Annie settled herself in the other armchair and Eileen and Lil were tangled up together on the sofa with Colleen. Christy was sprawled on the floor, his hands under his chin, and Shamus had a glass of shandy beside him.

'Is Kathleen all right?'

Once more, Lance was talking to the room in general and, once more, Colleen answered.

'She's upstairs talking to herself again.'

Lil sat up and smacked Colleen's leg noisily.

'Don't say that about her!'

Eileen didn't take her eyes off the screen as she said quietly, 'Why not? It's true. She was at it all last night, effing and blinding to the air as per usual. It gets on my nerves.'

'She can't help it and you know that. So stop being so bloody nasty.'

Lil sat up now, her nice evening ruined. 'Why do you always fucking come in and cause upset, eh, Lance? Why can't you just leave us all alone for once?'

No one said a word. Christy was hunching his shoulders as if warding off a blow and Colleen had closed her eyes tightly.

Lil knew she shouldn't lose her temper so quickly but she couldn't help herself. When Lance asked about Kathleen she felt a note of accusation in his voice and she knew it was there, she wasn't imagining it. He was good at masking it but she knew him better than he knew himself.

'Did you see Pat's new flat?'

Lance didn't answer her as she knew he wouldn't.

'About time you got yourself somewhere and all. This place is getting too small now this lot are growing up and Kathleen needs a room to herself, as does Eileen.'

There, she had finally said it out loud. The sooner he went, the better; she knew what had happened this week. She had been the one who had been left to tell Pat all about it.

'Leave him alone, Lil. Who'll look after Kathleen if he goes?'

Annie's voice was worried. Lance was the reason she got up in the morning and they all knew that in one way or another.

'Why don't you go and live with Nanny?'

This was from Christy, who was always trying to keep the peace. 'She's in that flat all on her own and there's plenty of room there.'

Lil could have kissed him, but she kept herself in check. Annie had been angling for this for a long time and now she knew that Lance had been put in a position where he had to make a stand of some kind.

He sipped his beer noisily and then he looked at his mother and said loudly, 'I can't leave Kathleen. I'm the only one who can calm her down and you know it. I pay my way and if you want me out you'll have to throw me out.'

Lance's voice was as cold and flat as always. No inflection at all, it was a monotonous voice that was like a loud scratch across a blackboard to Lil.

'Consider yourself thrown out then, Lance.' The words were clipped and very determined.