By the time John sorted the passion bit out Flora had the door open and in the act of jumping out of the car, with the blanket still wrapped around her because she wasn’t going anywhere without her comfort and warmth. He saw a car hurtle towards her and lunged forward to grab the blanket . To miss by an inch, lying across the seat with gritted teeth waiting to hear the crunch of a car against a body or the door.

A soft white haze veiled the sky, the sun a tenuous lemon disc above the vague shapes of the mountains. Saturated soil expelled its peaty load with such force it edged the road with small gurgling fountains and golden laced froths. A murmuring crowd of thin ripples hurried away over the hard surface, all with one intent, to find the lowest point in the glen.

She opened the door to a small narrow room with a wooden floor and a bare electric bulb hanging off centre. Behind the door a narrow bed against a grubby wall, pillows, a sheet and blanket half on the floor. A dirty window faced the door at the other end of the room, curtains of indeterminate colour drooping from an overstretched wire. Under the window a sink full of dirty crockery and cutlery, and under the sink a rubbish bin with more food wrappings on the floor than in it.

Word soon got around about a tramp with a face like a squashed tomato sat on a suitcase with bags of rubbish around him. Freddie tormented by gangs of kids minutes after Reg left him. But Freddie was far superior to the usual tramp: he had the intellectual capacity to think of a way of keeping the hordes at bay. He gathered together bits of broken bricks and stones and threw them at the kids, not that he succeeded in hitting any of them. But the kids were far superior than Freddie, because they had the intellectual capacity to throw the missiles back, and hit him every time.

“I wonder how the lovely Flora would feel if her scar faced John had a matching one on the other side ,” sniggered Reg who was becoming quite elated with his game of knife jabs and head jerks. “Higher up so you can see it.” Reg put the point of the blade at John’s temple and moved it to his eye. “That’s about right. So you can’t cover it up.” He stuck the tip of his tongue out, his bruised and bloody face a clown in a parody of concentration. “And…”The blade swept to the centre of John’s cheek and down to his chin.

Her reply the smile she knew so well, the smile her father used to put people at ease and to encourage them to bring profit his way. Flora had the overwhelming need to slap her hands to her knees and scream with laughter. She didn’t, but she did do something she couldn’t remember doing before and to her shame hadn’t thought of doing before, she kissed her father on the brow.