Jess stood there, shocked into immobility, her skin prickling with embarrassment.

‘I told you,’ Nathalie said, as she scrubbed furiously at the guest bathroom a few minutes later. ‘Those private schools don’t teach them any manners.’

Forty minutes later they were finished. Jess gathered Mr Nicholls’s immaculate white towels and sheets into her holdall, stuffing them in with more force than was strictly necessary. She walked downstairs and placed the bag next to the cleaning crate in the hall. Nathalie was polishing the doorknobs. It was one of her things. She couldn’t bear fingerprints on taps or doorknobs. Sometimes it took them ten minutes to leave an address.

‘Mr Nicholls, we’re going now.’

He was standing in the kitchen, just staring out through the window at the sea, one hand on the top of his head like he’d forgotten it was there. He had dark hair and was wearing those glasses that are supposed to be trendy but just make you look like you’ve dressed up as Woody Allen. He wore a suit like a twelve-year-old forced to go to a christening.

‘Mr Nicholls.’

He shook his head slightly, then sighed and walked down the hallway. ‘Right,’ he said distractedly. He kept glancing down at the screen of his mobile phone. ‘Thanks.’

They waited.

‘Um, we’d like our money, please.’

Nathalie finished polishing, and folded her cloth, unfolding it and folding it again. She hated money conversations.

‘I thought the management company paid you.’

‘They haven’t paid us in three weeks. And there’s never anyone in the office. If you want us to continue we need to be up to date.’

He scrabbled around in his pockets, pulled out a wallet. ‘Right. What do I owe you?’

‘Thirty times three weeks. And three weeks of laundry.’

He looked up, one eyebrow raised.

‘We left a message on your phone, last week.’

He shook his head, as if he couldn’t be expected to remember such things. ‘How much is that?’

‘One hundred and thirty-five all together.’

He flicked through the notes. ‘I don’t have that much cash. Look, I’ll give you sixty and get them to send you a cheque for the rest. Okay?’

On another occasion Jess would have said yes. On another occasion she would have let it go. It wasn’t as if he was going to rip them off, after all. But she was suddenly sick of wealthy people who never paid on time, who assumed that because seventy-five pounds was nothing to them it must be nothing to her too. She was sick of clients who thought she meant so little that they could slam a door in her face without so much as an apology.

‘No,’ she said, and her voice was oddly clear. ‘I need the money now, please.’

He met her eye for the first time. Behind her Nathalie rubbed manically at a doorknob. ‘I have bills that need paying. And the people who send them won’t let me put off paying week after week.’

She couldn’t get it out of her head: the flat dismissal of his palm, the way he had just slammed the door in her face.

He frowned at her, as if she was being particularly difficult. It made her dislike him even more. She wondered, for a moment, whether to tell him to stick his stupid job. But there were some principles you couldn’t afford.

‘I’ll have to look upstairs,’ he said, disappearing. They stood in uncomfortable silence as they heard drawers being shut emphatically, the clash of hangers in a wardrobe. Finally he came back with a handful of notes.

He peeled some off without looking at Jess and handed them over. She was about to say something – something about how he didn’t have to behave like an utter dickhead, about how life went that little bit more smoothly when people treated each other like human beings, something that would no doubt make Nathalie rub half the door handle away with anxiety. She didn’t care. Even the way he handed out the money suggested he was giving her something she wasn’t quite entitled to. But just as she opened her mouth to speak his phone rang. Without a word Mr Nicholls spun away from her and was striding down the hallway to answer it.

‘What’s that in Norman’s basket?’

‘Nothing.’

Jess was unpacking the groceries, hauling items out of the bags with one eye on the clock. She had a three-hour shift at the Feathers and just over an hour to make tea and get changed. She shoved two cans to the back of the shelves, hiding them behind the cereal packets. She was sick of the supermarket’s cheery ‘value’ label. It was as if every time she opened the cupboard someone was yelling at her, ‘HEY! YOU’RE POOR!’

Nicky stooped, and tugged at the piece of fabric, so that the dog reluctantly got to his feet. ‘It’s a white towel. Jess, it’s an expensive one. Norman’s got hair all over it. And dribble.’ He held it up between two fingers.

‘I’m going to wash it later.’ She didn’t look at him.

‘Is it Dad’s?’

‘No, it is not your dad’s.’

‘I don’t understand –’

‘It’s just making me feel better, okay? Can you put that stuff over there in the freezer?’

He slouched against the kitchen units, peering out into the front garden. In the breeze the clothes dryer whirled around, the pegged cleaning cloths flying out like pennants above the potted geraniums and the bicycle Jess had painted a glittery pink that peeled off like clumps of nail varnish.

‘Shona Bryant was taking the mickey out of Tanzie at the bus stop. Because of her clothes.’

‘What about her clothes?’ Jess turned to Nicky, a can of tinned tomatoes in her hand.

‘Because you make them.’

‘How does she know I make them?’

‘She asked Tanzie where they came from and Tanzie just told her. You know what she’s like.’

‘But she likes what I make. I mean – she’s happy in them.’

‘Shona Bryant’s the one who said our house was weird because we had too many books.’

‘Shona Bryant’s an idiot.’

He leant down to stroke Norman. ‘Oh. And we got a reminder from the electric company.’

Jess let out a small sigh. ‘How much?’

He walked over to the pile of papers on the sideboard and flicked through. ‘Comes to more than two hundred altogether.’

She took out a packet of cereal. ‘I’ll sort it.’

Nicky opened the fridge door. ‘You should sell the car.’

‘I can’t sell it. It’s your dad’s only asset.’

‘But he could be using it to earn money. And then he could pay you some.’

Sometimes Jess wasn’t entirely sure why she kept defending him. ‘There isn’t anywhere safe to keep it at his mum’s. Anyway. He’ll sort it out when he’s back on his feet. Now, go on upstairs. I’ve got someone coming.’ She could see her walking up the back path.

‘We’re buying stuff off Aileen Trent?’ Nicky watched her open the gate and close it carefully behind her.

Jess couldn’t hide the way her cheeks coloured. ‘Just this once.’

He stared at her. ‘You said we had no money.’

‘Look, it’s to take Tanzie’s mind off the school thing when I have to tell her.’ Jess had made her decision on the way home. The whole idea was ridiculous. They could barely keep their heads above water as it was. There was no point even trying to entertain it.

He kept staring at her. ‘But Aileen Trent. You said –’

‘And you’re the one who just told me Tanzie was getting bullied because of her clothes. Sometimes, Nicky …’ Jess threw her hands into the air. ‘Sometimes the ends justify the means.’

Nicky’s look lasted longer than she felt entirely comfortable with. And then he went upstairs.

‘So I’ve brought a lovely selection of things for the discerning young lady. You know they all love their designer labels. I took the liberty of bringing a few extra bits, even though you said you weren’t interested.’

Aileen’s ‘shop’ voice was formal, with overly precise diction. It was quite odd, emerging as it did, from someone Jess had seen regularly ejected by force from the King’s Arms. She sat cross-legged on the floor and reached into her black holdall, pulling out a selection of clothes and laying them carefully on the carpet, co-ordinating separates in layers.

‘There’s a Hollister top here. They’re all into Hollister, the girls. Shocking expensive in the shops. I’ve got some more designer stuff in my other bag, although you did say you didn’t require high-end. Oh, and two sugars, if you’re making one.’

Aileen did a weekly round of this end of the estate, her skin waxy, her big black holdall on wheels trundling behind her. She was as much a local fixture as the postman, and as regular. ‘You’ve got to be professional to thrive in business,’ she would observe sagely, pale eyes blinking slowly within her spectral face.

Jess had always issued a firm thanks-but-no-thanks. Nobody on the estate ever talked about where Aileen got her bargains, her knock-down prices with the tags still on, but everyone knew. Jess always told Marty she didn’t like the example it set the kids.

But that was before.

She picked up the layered tops, one stripy, the other a soft rose. She could already see Tanzie in them. ‘How much?’

‘Ten for the top, five for the T-shirt, and twenty for the trainers. You can see from the tag they retail for eighty-five. That’s a serious discount.’

‘I can’t do that much.’

‘Well, as you’re a new client, I can do you an introductory bonus.’ Aileen held up her notebook, squinting at the figures. ‘You take the three items and I’ll let you have the jeans too. For goodwill.’ She smiled, her missing tooth gaping cheerfully. ‘Thirty-five pounds for a whole outfit, including footwear. And this month only I’m throwing in a little bracelet. You won’t get those prices in TK Maxx.’