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wedding arch. ‘See you Saturday, unless you feel the sudden need to save my life first.’
    His hand brushed against Ianto’s skirt and then he went over to heat up some pies, giving Ianto an enormous wink.
    Ianto watched Patrick’s back as he worked and realised that, for the first time, he was actually enjoying being a woman. Suddenly hungry, he turned to Bren. ‘Can I have some chips after all?’
    Without looking up Bren got to work. ‘Small chips, is it?’ she said. ‘1.20 thanks, love.’
    As Ianto walked out, he was oblivious to the two flour handprints over the back of his skirt.
    Back out in the rain, he took three steps, trying to eat the chips and shield them from the weather. Steam rose from them, wafting around in the downpour. They didn’t taste of much, other than hot, but somehow they comforted him. A crowd of blokes edged past, their eyes all over him. Someone grabbed his arse, and he flinched and forced himself to move on. If only you bloody knew, he thought.
    Later, he’d ask Gwen how she coped with an evening of constant ogling. She’d grin and say, ‘Well, most of the time, I was all padded up in my lovely copper’s outfit. That tends to soften the curves a bit. You still get a bit of chat, mind, but it’s all “awright luv?” banter. Honestly, if I’m lucky, someone’ll tell me that they’ll come quietly. You know. Clever. But not so bad.’
    Yeah, Ianto would say, but what about when she was out… properly? And Gwen would shrug and grin. ‘I gave as good as I got.’ And Ianto didn’t doubt it for a second.
    But for the moment there was just the chips and the rain. Ianto pressed on, past the bright lights of the last shop open selling cigarettes in Cardiff. One foot in front of the other.
    These bloody, bloody shoes. I am never doing this again. And definitely never sober.
    The chips were cold and damp. The rain was in everything.
    I am completely soaked and sodden. I will never be warm and dry. I absolutely hate being a woman.
    Ianto saw something in the street ahead, a figure standing in the shadows by the scaffolding. Something really quite—
    Oh is that a cab?
    Ianto rushed towards the flickering amber light sluicing down the road. He knew that around him a mini-stampede of drunk boys and desperate girls were all lurching towards the cab. But Ianto knew that he needed it more than anyone else. Screw the shoes, he was going to get it.
    He got his hand on the door and was met by the baleful, seen-it-all gaze of the cabbie. ‘You going to be sick?’ asked the voice.
    ‘Stone-cold sober,’ promised Ianto. The door clicked open and he climbed gratefully in.
    ‘There’s a charge for sick, you know. And I hate having to scrub the back out. Why they can’t do it in a bag, I dunno. Bloody animals.’
    And the cab puttered away, taking Ianto home through the storm. He sat there, hands scrunched round his bag of damp chips, thinking back to what he’d seen on the street just before he’d noticed the cab, with all its amber promise of home and central heating and towels. Because, as he’d been waving his hands at the cab, there’d been a man standing just ahead of him in the street. The man had been standing in the shadows of some scaffolding by the market. He’d just been standing there, looking at Ianto. It hadn’t been a look of lust, desire or even disgust. The look had been one of shock, or fear. Like he’d seen a ghost.
    Ianto unwrapped the dead bag of chips and stared at them. Am I a ghost?
    Standing there in the rain, watching the taxi drive off, Ross Kielty couldn’t believe what he’d just seen.
    Everyone in Cardiff slept badly that night.

GWEN IS AWAKE FIRST
    Gwen lay in bed, killing time before the alarm by staring at the back of Rhys’s head.
    ‘I know what you’re doing, you know,’ mumbled Rhys without moving. ‘Stop it.’
    ‘Stop what?’ Gwen was all innocence.
    ‘You are staring at the back of my head. I can tell.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Burning