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said.
    There was more action in Frank than AJ had seen since the day he and the marshmallow three-piece suite had moved in. There was not much room in the hall and Frank took up most of it. The red reptile grabbed the handle of the Arsenal bag.
    â€˜Don’t think you can run out on me without paying the rent,’ she said, trying to pull the bag off Frank.
    A tug of war ensued, which didn’t last long as the bag’s handle snapped, along with Frank’s patience.
    â€˜Get off me, you old cow,’ he said and slapped Jan hard.
    She went at Frank, fists flying.
    â€˜Just quit it, Mum,’ said AJ.
    Frank turned on AJ and the first blow caught his left eye. AJ ducked the rest as best as he could until Frank had him pinned flat on the marshmallow sofa in the lounge. It took AJ a moment to work out what Frank was shouting.
    â€˜It’s kids that are the bleeding trouble. Never wanted them – not hers, not mine  … ’
    â€˜I never bleeding well wanted
him
– that’s for sure,’ screamed Jan.
    AJ thought about the straw that broke the camel’s back: how much straw that camel had to carry before it realised it was too much. Too long he had put up with the crazy-paving pattern of violence. Seventeen years. Too long, far too long. He freed himself and landed such a punch on Frank’s face that he fell, sprawled flat on his back, a beer-filled belch spilling from him.
    â€˜What have you done to him?’ Jan shouted, leaning over Frank’s prostrate body.
    There was a moment of silence, that moment before the next record plays on the turntable.
    â€˜Frank, baby, are you all right?’ sobbed the red reptile. ‘I’m sorry, cherry pie.’
    â€˜Where’re you going?’ said Roxy, coming out of her bedroom. AJ was opening the front door.
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t be coming back.’
    He ran down the stairs, only vaguely noticing Elsie and Vera. Elsie called after him and Mrs Perkins from the bottom flat said she’d rung the police.
    â€˜Someone could be murdered up there.’
    â€˜Yeah, me,’ said AJ and slammed the outside door.
    He was so angry there was no way he could stop moving. It felt as if sparks of fire were flying off him, such was his frustration with his family, with all the shit that was his life. Fireworks exploded in the sky, sparks of gunpowder as red as his rage.
    He squeezed through the gap in the fence next to the locked park gates and was drawn to the clatter of wheels and the sound of a skateboard as it hit the ground. AJ sat on a bench, not saying a word, watching Leon flip and olly down the bank.
    â€˜Safe, man,’ said Leon after a while and handed AJ his skateboard.
    AJ was nowhere near as good a skateboarder as Leon and Slim but it was a release just to be on the board, to feel his body twist and turn, his breath coming deep and fiery.
    The police were at Bodman House when they passed it. Leon lived two blocks away.
    â€˜What happened, bro?’ he asked as he put the key in his door.
    â€˜Mum and Frank,’ said AJ.
    â€˜Shit,’ said Leon.
    The flat Leon lived in with his mum could at best be described as raw. The place stank of mould, weed and cat’s piss. The carpets almost moved without you walking on them. For all that, it was a darn sight more cosy that night than AJ’s flat. They watched
Night of the Living Dead,
smoking weed, neither of them saying much. AJ fell asleep on the sofa.
    At lunchtime the next day Slim turned up with pizza and Cokes.
    â€˜What went down at your manor last night, dude?’ he asked AJ, who was in the kitchen trying to find a clean mug.
    â€˜Nothing much,’ he said, turning round.
    â€˜Wowzer,’ said Slim. ‘That is one impressive bruise.’
    AJ glanced at his black eye in the mirror. It wasn’t good.
    â€˜I can’t go to work like this.’
    Leon and Slim studied him.
    â€˜I