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Mum.’
    Javine sniffed and said ‘fine’, meaning that it wasn’t.
    â€˜Only if something comes up, you know?’
    â€˜Whatever.’ Javine let her fork clatter onto the plate. ‘But I don’t think one night would hurt you, and I think it would be a good idea to save the babysitting up with your mum a bit more, until we really need it, yeah?’ She stood and started to gather up the plates. ‘Like if the two of us ever go out together, you know?’
    â€˜I get it, it’s cool, OK?’ He finished his beer. ‘No need to get riled up, man.’ It wasn’t cool, not really, but what else was he going to say? Nearly six months since the baby had arrived and he knew that the park or the playgroup was as exciting as her life got. Gemma was the only friend she’d made since he’d brought her back here and he knew she’d left plenty else behind.
    Javine carried the plates into the kitchen. ‘You want tea?’
    Theo and his family had moved from Lewisham to Kent five years before, when Theo was twelve. The old man had swapped his job on the Underground for one on the buses and they’d upped sticks to a place in Chatham with an extra bedroom for Theo’s little sister, Angela, and air that was a bit less likely to aggravate her asthma. Everyone was happy. It was near the sea, which the old man had liked, there was bingo and a decent boozer over the road, and though there was a bit of trouble at school to start with, Theo and his sister had settled down quickly enough.
    He’d met Javine at one of the big arcades. She and a mate had started giggling when he’d bent over a pool table. Later on they’d shared a joint or two outside and talked until chucking-out time.
    Then, the previous summer, when Javine was three months pregnant, they’d had to make the journey back the other way. Theo’s grandmother on his father’s side had refused to move with the rest of the family, and when the stubborn old mare suffered a stroke, there was nobody else around to look after her. One day the air had tasted of salt; the next they were all back in the same shitty low-rise they’d been living in four years earlier.
    Stupidest thing of all, the old woman was as fit as a fiddle now, had started to perk up as soon as she had her family around her again. It was Theo’s old man who had got sick. Coughing up blood in their front room, and dying one afternoon in front of the horse racing, while Lewisham Hospital tried to find him a bed.
    â€˜Theo?’ Javine was shouting now, from the kitchen.
    â€˜Yeah, tea sounds good,’ Theo said.
    Javine wasn’t the only one who’d left friends behind when they’d come to south London. Theo still thought about Ransford and Kenny a lot, and Craig and Waheed from football. They’d stayed in touch for a while after he’d moved back, but things had just seemed to drift after the baby. Since he’d caught up with Easy and the others again.
    Not that he’d caught up in every sense.
    It was because he’d gone away; that’s what Easy told him. That’s why he’d lost his place; why Easy had a better slot with the crew even though Theo was older. Just bad luck, bad timing, whatever.
    Theo’s mobile chirped on the table.
    Javine shouted through from the kitchen: ‘That’ll be Easy or your mum.’
    â€˜You reckon?’
    â€˜Who else?’
    Theo hadn’t seen Easy for a week or so; not since their afternoon at the pitch and putt. Not properly at any rate. He’d seen him go past a couple of times in that sick Audi A3 he’d taken to driving around. He’d had it for a year, sitting in a lock-up. Polished the fucker every week, changed the Magic Tree air freshener, all that. But he’d done the decent thing and waited until he was only one year below the legal driving age before actually getting behind the wheel.
    Theo had his dad’s