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Right?
    No one were answering when I buzzed. But that didn’t mean much. She liked her sack, did Sal. I reckon she liked it best when she had a feller in it, but she were partial to a bit of kip and all. Specially after a night on the pop. I buzzed again, holding me thumb on the button for half a minute.
    Still no answer.
    Then I remembered walking home with Finney last night and thinking I’d seen Sal with a feller in the back of a cab. I looked at me watch. Half three. If she had someone in there he’d have pissed off by now. Sal weren’t the sort to let fellers hang around after she’d had her fun. Only I were allowed that privilege. And that’s cos I weren’t just a feller. We had a special arrangement, see. When she needed a bit of protection, she came to me. And I went to her when I wanted…well, a shag.
    I heard a motor starting up round the corner. Noises like that don’t as a rule catch my attention, but this were a deep rumble—summat powerful, like what you don’t often hear round these parts. I leant back to take a gander. But that were when Sally’s voice piped up on the intercom.
    ‘Who the fuck is that?’ she says in her best telephone voice.
    ‘All right, sweetheart.’
    ‘Oh, hiya.’
    The door clicked. I pushed it open.
    I walked up the stair feeling nice and easy. Halfway up I stopped and lit a fag. All right, she’d had a feller last night. So what? Weren’t the first time. And I were no monk meself. Weren’t like we was married neither. Not even close, mate. She liked a slap and I liked a tickle, and between us we had an all right time when it suited us. Healthy feller and a fit bird—nothing wrong with that. But it didn’t mean anything else, right?
    She were still in her dressing gown. But it weren’t that what set us on edge when I walked in the flat. It were the smell. You know the smell you gets in your living room when your pissed-up mate kips on the sofa? A manly smell, mixture of beer, sweat, stale aftershave, and farts. Your typical feller don’t notice it much round his own house, it being the normal way of things for him. But in a bird’s place he will notice. ‘Who were he?’ I says, all cool and can’t give a toss, like.
    Sally had flopped onto the couch and lit a fag. She took a long pull on it and says: ‘Don’t you go gettin’ jealous on me, you daft bastard. You knows you ain’t meant to mention things of that sort.’
    ‘Things,’ I says, looking at the floor. ‘Things of what sort?’
    ‘You know. Things…Oh, Blake, I turns a blind eye to what you gets up to and you does same for me. Iss the way we is, Blake. I don’t tell you what to do an’ you—’
    ‘Who were he is all I asked,’ I says. I shoved my hands in me pockets, where they clenched into fists. ‘Go on, who?’
    ‘You never asked before,’ she says, snatching up her dressing gown around her chest. Bird can’t show her wares when she’s got a mood on. ‘You never asked before because that’s the way it suits you. Gets to shag yer way through every little slapper in town, you does.’
    ‘I never asked before cos I never had to sniff the fucker’s farts before. Now answer us. Who were he?’
    ‘Leave us alone. I hates you sometimes.’ She picked up her fags and lighter and cleared off into the bedroom, leaving us standing there like a twat.
    Just because it were the way it were don’t mean I liked it. I did know about Sally’s dalliances. And so did half the town. Sally’d always been that way. Specially when she had a few Pernod and blacks inside of her. Scrumpy did the trick and all, but it took longer and gave her wind. She’d been that way at school, popular with the fellers and vicey-versa. She’d carried on that way when she left and got a job cutting hair. You couldn’t blame her for craving a bit of male company after crimping all them old ladies’ barnets all week and listening to their gossip. It’s a fair bet she got even more that way after taking up