I hammered on Miles’s bedroom door and pushed it open, turning on the light and seeing Leah emerge from the covers like a mermaid coming out of the waves.

‘What -’ she began.

‘Miles!’

‘What’s up? Astrid? Astrid!’

‘Come and help now. It’s urgent. Dario’s hurt. Leah, get the others. We’re outside the front door. Come on!’

I left them, hammered at Pippa’s door and yelled her name again, then ran out of the front door, leaving it open so that the light fell on where Dario lay.

He’d moved now, and was sitting huddled on the bottom step, his face in his lap and his arms wrapped round his body. I sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulder. ‘If you can move, let’s get you inside.’

He muttered something unintelligible into his knees.

‘I really think I ought to call an ambulance.’

‘No!’

He half sat up as he said this and I gasped as I saw his face. One eye was closed, his nose was swollen and shapeless, and blood smeared his chin and ran in gobbets from his mouth. ‘Can’t see properly.’

‘Here, take my arm.’

‘Dario.’

It was Miles, and behind him I saw Davy, then Mel, in bright pink pyjamas, her hair in plaits.

‘Help me get him inside.’

Davy took one arm and Miles the other. Mel cooed and tutted beside them. Pippa appeared in boxer shorts and an old T-shirt.

‘Where’s Mick?’ I asked. ‘He knows about things like this.’

‘I’ll get him,’ said Mel, eagerly.

‘Have you called the ambulance?’ asked Davy.

‘No ambulance!’ gasped Dario.

‘What happened, mate?’

‘Nothing,’ said Dario, as he was hauled into the hall. Blood dripped on to the floorboards. Leah stood in the doorway of Miles’s room, watching. I saw her eyes widen as she saw the mess of his face.

‘Let’s get him downstairs,’ said Miles.

‘I can walk now.’ But he staggered. Davy steadied him and guided him down into the kitchen.

‘Hot tea,’ I said, and they lowered him into the armchair. ‘With sugar for the shock.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Mel, reappearing with Mick, who was wearing jogging pants and nothing else.

‘Whisky,’ said Miles.

‘You were beaten up, weren’t you?’ asked Davy, frowning with concern. ‘You really can’t just leave that, you know.’

‘I’ll be all right.’ But he was crying, his tears running into the blood. One of his teeth was missing, his ginger hair was plastered to his head. He looked about seven years old, scrawny, defeated and utterly woebegone. I squatted down and put a hand on his knee.

‘Oh, Dario,’ I said, and he wept harder. ‘Tell us.’

‘They wouldn’t stop,’ he gasped.

‘Who?’ asked Miles. ‘Who did this to you?’

I turned away and went to where Mel was making tea. I soaked kitchen towels in warm water and took the disinfectant from the cupboard underneath the sink.

‘How do you put up with us all?’ I asked her. ‘You must think you’ve wandered into a madhouse.’

She smiled at me shyly, her cheeks pink. ‘I like being with you. I never had a family of my own.’

‘My God, Mel! Is this your idea of a family? Hold on, Dario, I’m coming to clean you up a bit.’

Pippa and I washed his grazes and dabbed on disinfectant. Mick examined him to see if he’d broken anything. He howled and blubbered a bit more, held my hand, and repeated that nobody must know.

‘Was it Lee?’ asked Davy.

But he wouldn’t give names, and in the end we gave up. Mick lifted him like a baby and carried him to his room, where he laid him on his bed and Pippa and I put extra blankets over him. Mel plumped up his pillow and put her smooth little hand on his sweaty forehead. His sobs were little whimpers now, and then, suddenly, he was fast asleep, his mashed-up face peaceful at last.

It was nearly dawn before I got to bed that night. After Dario had fallen asleep, the rest of the household sat in the kitchen, drank whisky and talked, endlessly repeating themselves, about Dario. For that brief time our group was oddly companionable again, drawn together by the experience. One by one, people peeled away, until at last only Pippa and I were left at the table with our glasses.

‘I’m not really tired now,’ I said.

‘Nor me.’

‘Want a sandwich or something?’

‘Go on, then. We haven’t had a midnight feast for ages.’

I opened the fridge and peered inside. There wasn’t much in it. ‘I think it’s a choice between a cheese sandwich or a melted cheese sandwich.’

‘The second one. Comfort food.’

‘OK.’ I cut two thick slices of bread and put them in the toaster. ‘Pippa?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure – as long as it’s not for a loan. I’ve got an overdraft of eight hundred and twenty-seven pounds at the moment.’

‘Nothing like that.’ I spread butter on the slices, then sprinkled grated cheese on them and slid them under the grill. ‘Why do you sleep with so many men?’

Pippa gave a gurgle that could either have been merriment or dismay. ‘First Leah,’ she said. ‘Now you. You think I’m a slag.’

‘No, I don’t. It’s just that I’ve never quite got it. I’m not exactly saving myself for my wedding day, but hasn’t it got to mean something? It’s not like having coffee with someone… I don’t think I’m putting this very well.’

‘The cheese is ready.’

‘Here you are. It’s probably very hot. It’s just – well, there are so many of them. It’s a bit bewildering sometimes.’

‘Why not?’ she said lightly, and bit into her toast; strings of melted cheese clung to her chin. ‘This is perfect. Just the thing after a mugging.’

‘Is that it, then? Why not?’

‘I guess.’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

‘Enjoy?’ She paused with her toast half-way to her mouth and considered.

‘So?’

‘You really want the answer? Because it’s the one thing men really want. They might deny it, but no man – however moral, however married – will turn you down if you offer them sex.’ There was a silence. ‘Are you shocked?’

‘I was just thinking,’ I said. ‘I don’t know whether you love men or you have contempt for them.’

Pippa thought about it. ‘Can’t I do both?’

Chapter Sixteen

I only found out that we were going to have a sale when I arrived home in the evening and read about it on the large cardboard sign that someone had tacked on to the tree at the front.

‘House-clearance sale,’ it read in large letters. I recognized the paint as the deep green that Dario had been using to paint the upstairs hall, before he laid down his brush and went on strike. ‘Thursday 6 p.m.’ Underneath, in the bathroom’s stone blue, was written in a large, childlike hand, ‘Bargains!!!’

‘House-clearance sale?’ I asked Davy, when I went into the kitchen. He was sitting at the table failing to do the crossword, and I could see that someone had already started putting old pots and pans into cardboard boxes while piles of chipped plates, discoloured mugs, ugly vases, a broken toaster minus its plug and a food mixer that had long ago stopped working cluttered all the surfaces.

‘Apparently.’

‘But we still live here. We’re not moving for weeks yet.’

‘We’re not getting rid of everything. Just the things we don’t need and know we don’t want.’

‘We need plates.’ I stared around the room. ‘Those are my mother’s old teacups. You can’t just chuck them out.’

‘It was Pippa’s idea. She said we should liquidate our assets.’

‘What’s this?’

He peered at it, frowning. ‘I think it’s an old pasta-maker, minus the handle thing. It’s a bit rusty, isn’t it? And that’s the bottom half of an ice-cream maker. Dario couldn’t find the top.’

‘Right. Assets, Pippa said?’

Davy gave a little giggle. He’s one of the few men I know who giggles like a girl.

‘Hi, Astrid.’

I turned. Mel stood in the doorway, her soft brown hair falling over her face. She was wearing a green skirt and a sleeveless white top and looked fresh and eager. I smiled at her. ‘Hello there.’