I can tell you exactly when I grew up. It was the moment I watched her car hop out of the damp ramp and into the blustery traffic, the same moment I pulled off my school jumper and made for the lift. Tell the truth, until that moment I wasn’t sure that I would do it. I hoped I would, like my will was some external force like the wind or the waves. But the moment my finger jabbed the lift button and the doors slid shut, I knew that something had changed. I just didn’t realise by how much.

The flat was silent, in moments I had changed, taking care to scatter bits of my uniform across the hallway. Everything had to look normal. I gelled my hair, I look older that way and shoved some food and the bus timetable into my sports bag. I kicked off my shoes and slipped into the master bedroom, footprints would never do. I padded to the bedside locker and slid open the top drawer. Nothing. The clock radio caught my eye, I was late. I had planned everything but clearly not carefully enough - I rushed to the book shelf and rooted between the bottles, lotions and jewellery boxes. Out of the corner of my eye another minutes clicked past. I should be outside by now. I yanked the wardrobe open, my fingers slipping in and out of her coat pockets, shaking them, rattling them, hoping. My hand closed around a pile of change. Barely enough for the first leg. I realisation crept over me, if I was going to do this I only had one option.

I crossed back to the jewellery boxes and paused. In economics this is what our Old Fart Bucket called cash-flow. My hand closed around a plain gold ring. It was only as I held it in my hand did I realise what it was. Her wedding ring. It was no good to her, but to me . . .

The lift door shut with a sigh. I buried the ring deep in my coat pocket. I’d have to find a pawn shop near enough to get back to, when I had the money. How I’d get the money wasn’t for now, I had a bus to catch and if I didn’t get there and back by 6pm my mother was going to kill me anyway.