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Angus. It was the one and only time Maureen had asked her to lift her hands but Leslie still talked like the world’s hardest gangster. Maureen had begun to suspect that she needed to feel hard in response to a deep, souring fear. Leslie had been working at the shelter for a long time and she needed to differentiate herself from the women. If Leslie couldn’t handle herself she would be a candidate for everything she saw there, a victim in waiting, as vulnerable as the rest of them, waiting to be raped and ripped, waiting for fate to ambush her.
    “Are you hungry?” said Leslie, pulling on her leather jacket.
    Maureen shrugged. She didn’t want this, spending an evening with new, distant Leslie, being lied to and feeling like a mug and pretending that it didn’t matter. She wanted to be alone, at home with a bottle of whiskey and the unquestioning companionship of the television.
    “Well, are you coming, or what?”
    Wearily, Maureen picked up her coat and her bag and followed Leslie down the stairs.
    It was seven o’clock but as dark as midnight. A thin drizzle was falling, wafted up and down and sideways by the high wind, clinging to every surface. Leslie’s bike was parked across the street. She gave Maureen the spare helmet from the luggage box and kick-started the engine on the fifth go. Maureen held on to her waist, resting her head on her shoulder.
    A slick of rain covered the road and Leslie was driving too fast.
    She ducked between vans and cars, revving the engine angrily before changing gear. At the foot of a high hill she skidded on a sharp turn, bristled with fright and corrected herself, steadying the bike at the last minute. Maureen thought they were going to crash, that they might die, and the possibility left her feeling strangely elated. She let go of Leslie as the road slid away beneath her, holding on to nothing, feeling the wind push and pull her off balance. She swayed like a reed on the pillion as they drove through the dark, sodden city to the west.

Chapter 6
    FOREVER FRIENDS
    Maureen had always known that Leslie could be a cheeky bitch but she’d never turned on her before. She would never have believed that a boyfriend could come between them because they weren’t that sort of women. They were bigger than that, they had a heroic history, and they were too close. She wrongly assumed that Cammy would be just another blow-through. She went out with them a couple of times but afterwards she was always left with the uncomfortable impression of having been talked about, kindly perhaps, but still talked about.
    They had only been together a couple of months but Leslie had changed. She didn’t want to spend time with anyone but Cammy anymore and was always leaving early to hurry home to him. She started talking about having children and had changed the way she dressed. She bought a new pair of leather trousers for casual wear, offense enough in itself, but she coupled them with low-cut sexy tops with a deep cleavage that made her look cheap and vulnerable.
    The last time they had arranged to go out together Leslie stood her up. Maureen waited at the bar, drinking slowly at first, checking her watch every five minutes, every three minutes, every indignant fucking minute as she realized that Leslie wasn’t coming. She phoned the house. Leslie said she’d forgotten. Sorry. But Maureen said how could she forget? They’d only made the fucking arrangement the day before. Leslie giggled and whispered to Cammy to stop it and Maureen blushed as she listened to them, intimate and exclusive, sniggering at her. She slammed down the receiver and tramped up the road to her house feeling like a tit.
    Maureen and Leslie had met through a mutual fear of the Slosh. It was a horrible wedding. Lisa and Kenny were barely twenty and had only been together for seven months of drunken fights and public sex acts. The food was bland, the bride was drunk and the groom spent the reception making faces into the video