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if to distract him. “I photocopied your story at work. The magazine phoned to say you’d won. I wanted to tell you, but I thought I’d be better waiting till they wrote.”
    “Then they can’t publish my story if I don’t sign, and I don’t want it published.”
    “I’m sorry, Dudley, but they can.”
    She sounded by no means sorry enough. “Who says?” he demanded.
    “If you send something to a competition you’re agreeing to the rules. Even if you don’t sign that they can publish so long as they pay you. It’ll be five hundred pounds, look.”
    “I didn’t send it.”
    “You wouldn’t say I did against your wishes, would you? You’re making me feel I shouldn’t have tried to help your writing. I thought you’d be pleased someone besides me knows you’re as good as I’ve always known.”
    Long before she finished speaking Dudley’s brain felt clogged with words. “Will you sign so we’re in time for the post?” she said. “Here’s a pen.”
    She snapped her canvas handbag open and extracted a ballpoint, which she pushed towards him. It looked shrivelled by the sunlight or by his trapped panic, and made a small protracted scraping sound that lingered on his nerves. He closed his prickly fist around it and considered snapping it in two, but what would that achieve? He imagined her passing him an endless succession of pens until he collapsed beneath her pleading. He felt his lips bare his teeth in a smile or a grimace as he scribbled his signature on both contracts. “There,” he said so harshly that his throat grew raw. “Happy now?”
    “So long as you will be, and I know you will. Let me have one of those and keep the other.”
    When he only capped the ballpoint she leaned across the table and slid the topmost contract out of his reach. From her handbag she produced an envelope she’d addressed to the
Mersey Mouth
and already stamped. She inserted the contract and sealed the envelope as she stood up. “I’ll just run to the post,” she said, and did.
    He dragged his nails over the contract she’d left him. He thought of crumpling it up and shying it into the bin, but that would be pointless while Kathy wasn’t there to see. Instead he tramped upstairs to drop the contract among the typescripts, then sat on the bed to gaze at the story that had been taken out of his control. “Her first mistake was thinking he was mad . . .” He must have read it dozens of times, but it had never felt capable of betraying him until now. “Come and get me,” he said under his breath.
    The sunlight seemed to blaze at him like a floodlight as he became aware what he was inviting. He sprang to his feet and almost heaved the tall wardrobe on top of himself in his haste to findclothes that would let him chase after his mother. He was clawing at the knot of the cord at his waist and only managing to part his fingernails from the quick when Kathy reappeared at the junction of the roads. She waved at him, displaying her empty hand. “All done,” she called.

FIVE
    “They aren’t coming. I’m going out.”
    “Give them a few more minutes, Dudley. I know they’ll be here.”
    “I’ve given them plenty. I’ve given them more than I should. See, they don’t think as much of me as you said.”
    “Of course they do. They’ll just be delayed. Why don’t you ring the magazine?”
    “I don’t want to talk to them.”
    Was this one of his random attacks of suppressed panic? Kathy didn’t like to draw attention to them, even if she always felt she was to blame, because he would only lose his temper and deny them. Nobody except her would sense them, and she supposed that as his mother she would never stop worrying about him. He pushed himself to his feet with a creak of the upholstered wickersofa and scowled through the window. “There’s nobody. I’m going.”
    “Promise you won’t go far. Take your mobile so I can call you when they turn up. Don’t get dirty when you’re going to be