He was in the process of wondering whether the British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition could possibly be any duller than it sounded, when the telephone rang.

‘Hi, Will, it’s Marcus.’

‘Hi. Funnily enough, I was just wondering—’

‘Suzie said you want to take me out for the day somewhere.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s just—’

‘I’ll come if my mum can come.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I’ll come if you can take my mum too. And she hasn’t got any money, so either we’ll have to go somewhere cheap or you’ll have to treat us.’

‘Right. Hey, say what you mean, Marcus. Don’t beat around the bush.’

‘I don’t know how else to say it. We’re broke. You’re not. You pay.’

‘It’s OK. I was joking.’

‘Oh. I didn’t get it.’

‘No. Listen, I’m quite safe, you know. I thought it might be better just you and me.’

‘Why?’

‘Give your mum a break?’

‘Yeah, well.’

Suddenly, belatedly, he got it. Giving Marcus’s mum a break was what they had been doing last weekend; she had spent the leisure time tipping a bottle of pills down her throat and having her stomach pumped.

‘I’m sorry, Marcus. I was being dim.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Of course your mum can come. That would be great.’

‘We haven’t got a car either. You’ll have to bring yours.’

‘Fine.’

‘You can bring your little boy if you like.’

He laughed. ‘Thanks.’

‘That’s OK,’ Marcus said generously. ‘It’s only fair.’ Sarcasm, Will was beginning to see, was a language that Marcus found peculiarly baffling, which as far as Will was concerned meant it was absolutely irresistible.

‘He’ll be with his mum again on Saturday.’

‘Fine. Come round about half-past twelve or something. You remember where we live? Flat 2, 31 Craysfield Road, Islington, London N1 2SF.’

‘England, the world, the universe.’

‘Yeah,’ Marcus said blankly—simple confirmation for a simpleton.

‘Right. See you then.’

In the afternoon Will went out to buy a car seat in Mothercare. He had no intention of filling his whole flat with cots and potties and high chairs, but if he was going to start ferrying people around at weekends, he felt he should at least make some concession to Ned’s reality.

‘That’s sexist, you know,’ he said to the assistant smugly.

‘Sorry?’

‘Mothercare. What about the fathers?’

She smiled politely.

‘Fathercare,’ he added, just in case she was missing his point.

‘You’re the first person ever to say that.’

‘Really?’

‘No.’ She laughed. He felt like Marcus.

‘Anyway. How can I help you?’

‘I’m looking for a car seat.’

‘Yes.’ They were in the car-seat section. ‘What make are you looking for?’

‘Dunno. Anything. The cheapest.’ He laughed matily. ‘What do most people get?’

‘Well. Not the cheapest. They’re usually worried about safety.’

‘Ah. Yes.’ He stopped laughing. Safety was a serious business. ‘Not much point in saving a few quid if he ends up through the windscreen, is there?’

In the end—possibly to over-compensate for his previous callousness—he bought the most expensive car seat in the store, an enormous padded bright blue contraption that looked as though it might last Ned until he was a father himself.

‘He’ll love it,’ he said to the assistant as he handed over his credit card.

‘It looks nice now, but he’ll mess it up soon enough with his biscuits and crisps and what have you.’

Will hadn’t thought about his biscuits and crisps and what have you, so on the way home he stopped off for some chocolate chip cookies and a couple of bags of cheese and onion, squashed everything up, and sprinkled the crumbs generously over his new purchase.

Contrary to what he told Will, Marcus wasn’t really bothered about leaving his mum on her own. He knew that if she did try anything again it wouldn’t be for a while, because right now she was still in this weird, calm mood. But telling Will that he wanted his mum to come with them was a way of getting her and Will together, and after that, he reckoned, it should be easy. His mum was pretty, and Will seemed quite well off, they could go and live with Will and his kid, and then there’d be four of them, and four was twice as good as two. And maybe, if they wanted to, they could have a baby. His mum wasn’t too old. She was thirty-eight. You could have a baby when you were thirty-eight. So then there would be five of them, and it wouldn’t matter quite so much if one of them died. Well, it would matter, of course it would matter, but at least it wouldn’t leave somebody, him or his mum or Will or his little boy, completely on their own. Marcus didn’t even know whether he liked Will or not, but that didn’t come into it any more; he could see he wasn’t bad, or a drunk, or violent, so he would have to do.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know anything about Will, because he did: Marcus had checked him out. On his way back from school one afternoon he had seen Will out shopping, and he had followed him home like a private detective. He hadn’t really found out much about him, apart from where he lived and what shops he went in. But he seemed to be on his own—no girlfriend, no wife, no little boy, even. Unless the little boy was with his girlfriend at home. But if he had a girlfriend, why was he trying to chat up Suzie?

‘What time is this guy coming?’ his mum asked. They were tidying the house and listening to Exodus by Bob Marley.

‘In about ten minutes. You’re going to get changed, aren’t you?’

‘Why?’

‘Because you look a wreck, and he’s going to take us to Planet Hollywood for lunch.’ Will didn’t know that last bit yet, because Marcus hadn’t told him, but he wouldn’t mind.

She looked at him. ‘Why does it bother you what I wear?’

‘Planet Hollywood.’

‘What about it?’

‘You don’t want to look like an old bag there. In case one of them sees you.’

‘In case one of who sees me?’

‘Bruce Willis or one of them.’

‘Marcus, they won’t be there, you know.’

‘They’re there all the time. Unless they’re working. And even then they try to make films in London so they can go for lunch.’

Fiona laughed and laughed. ‘Who told you that?’

A kid at his old school called Sam Lovell had told him that. Now Marcus thought about it, Sam had told him some other things that turned out not to be true: that Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson were the same person, and that Mr Harrison the French teacher had been in the Beatles.

‘It’s just well known.’

‘Do you still want to go there if you’re not going to see any stars?’

He didn’t really, but he wasn’t going to let her know that.

‘Yeah. Course.’

His mum shrugged and went off to get changed.

Will came into the flat before they went out. He introduced himself, which Marcus thought was pretty stupid as everyone knew who everyone else was anyway.

‘Hi. I’m Will,’ he said. ‘We’ve… Well, I…’ But he obviously couldn’t think of a polite way of saying that he’d seen her conked out on the sofa by a pool of her own sick the week before, so he stopped and just smiled.

‘I’m Fiona.’ His mum looked good, Marcus thought. She was wearing her best leggings and a baggy, hairy jumper, and she was wearing make-up for the first time since the hospital, and a pair of nice dangly earrings someone had sent her from Zimbabwe. ‘Thanks for all you did last weekend. I really appreciate it.’

‘Pleasure. I hope you’re feeling… I hope you’ve—’

‘My stomach’s fine. I suppose I must still be a bit barmy, though. That sort of thing doesn’t clear up so quickly, does it?’

Will looked shocked, but she just laughed. Marcus hated it when she made jokes to people who didn’t know her very well.