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the wheelie-bin conveniently waiting for next-day collection, and set off on a jog down Cricklade Avenue towards Streatham High Road. I couldn’t wait to see Sal.
    Salvatore Zoppolo – to use his full name – was my best friend. We’d been part of an inseparable foursome for longer than I could remember – me, Tony, Sal and Cat. Tony’d been my boyfriend, Sal Cat’s. And then Cat’s parents had moved to Australia and she’d gone with them, and Tony – well, Tony had got himself a new girlfriend while still officially with me. It was my first dumping by a boyfriend ever. Utterly devastating. Sal, in the throes of getting over Cat’s desertion by playing the field, lent me a shoulder to cry on. We became the best of friends.
    After a while Sal got tired of drinking himself into a stupor with a different girl each weekend, and I got tired of wallowing in a swamp of self-pity. We both grew up, and so did our friendship. I found there the kind of familiarity I should have had with a girl friend, and I’d had with Cat. But all my former friends had drifted off into their own world, and most of all, they all drank – too much.
    I loathed drunkenness. In the year before his death, Dad’s alcoholism had sometimes led to violence, and now the very smell of strong liquor made me retch. Friends thought I was a prissy bore for not drinking, I thought they were juvenile. Only Sal had the time and, now, after six months of bingeing, the sobriety, to get to know the real me.
    He was waiting for me at Wong’s, and had already ordered – he knew me well enough to know what I’d want. I slipped into the seat opposite him and let out a deep sigh of relief.
    ‘Mum’s crazy. Stark raving mad!’ I said.
    Sal pushed away the strand of hair that always fell over his eyes. His father was Italian, his mother English, and his dark good looks turned female heads and kept male predators away from me. I still grieved for Tony, and Sal provided perfect platonic protection.
    ‘I thought it was your Nan who was crazy? That’s what you said on the phone …’
    ‘Yeah, but Mum’s crazy for setting herself up. Agreeing to take on Gran. Might as well get a job in the lunatic asylum! She’ll never manage. She’s scatty enough as it is; how’s she going to cope?’
    ‘Maybe you underestimate her.’
    ‘Nope. Mum’s as scatter-brained as they come. She just about manages to keep the two of us going, and only with my help. How’s she going manage Gran as well?’
    ‘With your help!’
    ‘Exactly! That’s the trouble. She knew from the start that Gran’ll end up my responsibility. It’s started already.’
    ‘Tell me about it.’
    And so I did. Wong’s teenage son placed plates of steaming noodles before us, and while we ate I gave Sal a rundown of the day, putting in some catty Gran-mimicry to get a few laughs from him – the way she chewed her cud, the way she clacked her false teeth, her accent, her claws, her myriad boring albums and her Limacol-patting. Then I got to great-great-great-I-don’t-know-how-many-greats-grandfather’s-or-whoever’s stamp album.
    ‘Worth millions!’ I said, rolling my eyes in mockery. Sal held up a hand and stopped me.
    ‘Maybe it really is very valuable. If it’s that old and rare.’
    ‘Ha! You should see the stamps in it – falling to pieces. And even if they weren’t, they’re nothing special. Just very primitive everyday stamps, nothing artistic or anything. And from British Guiana, a little backwater country nobody ever heard of. Who cares?’
    ‘Still – you never know. I’d get it valued if I were you. A philatelist might give you a couple of hundred for it.’
    ‘But even if so – she’d never sell it. It’s an heirloom. A precious heirloom!’
    I mimicked Gollum, clasping an imaginary album to my breast and rolling my eyes suspiciously around the restaurant. I couldn’t help it. My frustration with Gran, with the whole situation, found an outlet in mockery.
    ‘My