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take out a mortgage on it of ten thousand pounds, one eighth of its value.
    Minty wasn’t a very practical person, but Auntie had taught her some of the principles of thrift and neither a borrower nor a lender be. She’d already done the lending and now she was going to start borrowing—but all that much? “I’ll have to see,” she said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
    Jock had been spending every evening with her and most nights. When he hadn’t come round or phoned for three days she phoned the number he’d finally given her in Harvist Road but no one ever answered. Perhaps it was just that he was with his mum again. If he never came back it would be because she’d hesitated over the mortgage. She imprisoned herself in rituals, praying, taking extra flowers to Auntie’s grave, hardly moving about the house without touching wood, walking round the room like an old person who couldn’t get about without holding on to the tables and chairs. The rituals brought him back, and the prayers and the flowers. She’d decided to let him have the ten thousand.
    He wasn’t as happy as she thought he’d be. He seemed a bit absent, as if his thoughts and his interests were elsewhere. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he was changed. When he explained she understood. His mum was ill, he said. She’d been on a hospital waiting list for months. He’d like to take her out of the National Health Service and pay for her op privately if he could afford it. The whole thing was a worry. He might have to go down and be with her for a bit. In the meantime he’d get the application forms from the building society.
    Minty said she’d got about £250 left in the bank and he was to have that toward his mother’s op. His bank still hadn’t completed the changeover to the other branch, so she drew the cash out of the bank and emptied her account. He put the notes in the pocket of his black leather jacket and said she was an angel. The jacket looked new, it was so stiff and glossy, but he said, No, he’d had it for years, just never got around to wearing it. Next day he phoned her on his mobile—she didn’t know he’d got a mobile—and said he was in the train going to the West Country. Thanks to her, his mother would be able to have her hip done next week.
    Minty told Sonovia about the op, leaving out her personal involvement. They were in the cinema, waiting for the big picture to start and Laf to get back from the gents’. It was the first time Minty’d been out with them since Jock came on the scene.
    “His mum’s getting a hip replacement for two hundred and fifty pounds? You have to be joking.”
    “Ops cost a lot when they’re private,” Minty said.
    “I don’t mean it’s a lot, my deah, I mean it’s nothing.”
    Minty didn’t like that. She’d always suspected Sonovia was jealous because her Corinne hadn’t got a boyfriend. The lights went down and she accepted the pack of popcorn Laf handed her, She usually liked popcorn, it was dry and clean and not messy to eat, but this evening somehow it tasted stale. It’d be a shame if Sonovia and Laf were to turn against Jock when he’d soon be coming to live next door permanently.

    Like the rest of the country, she saw about the Paddington train crash on television. She didn’t connect it with anyone she knew. Jock had phoned her the day before from his mum’s as he’d promised and he hadn’t said anything about coming home soon. When he hadn’t phoned or appeared for three days she looked so pale and ill that Josephine asked her what was wrong.
    “Jock’s gone missing,” she said. “I don’t know where he’s got to.”
    Josephine didn’t say much to Minty, but she said a lot to Ken. He couldn’t understand a word but she talked to him just the same. He liked the sound of her voice and, as he listened, smiled with the tranquillity of the Buddhist at peace with himself and the world.
    “Maybe that Jock’s ma lives in Gloucester, Ken, or