Ken Barnes steps out of the DIY store clutching a tin of varnish to repair the scratches which Joan’s cat has made on the stair spindles. Now that his mother has died, Ken devotes himself to Joan, a ninety-five-year old spinster from Cricklewood whose father John died in the First Battle of the Somme, leaving his sixteen-year-old sweetheart alone to raise the child he had placed in her belly. Ken Barnes, whose mother also looked after Joan and would have wanted him to keep an eye on her. The clown watches as Michael Riordan, a pipefitter from Lismore pushes past Barnes on his way into the shop, Barnes neither calling out nor remonstrating. In fact, he apologises to the man. The clown would have challenged Riordan, if only for the devilry, to feel a blunt fist in his belly and righteous blood bursting from his nose. Barnes sorrying his way out of a situation that he did not even create, Christing his other cheek to the bully. The clown sneers at Barnes who smiles at him as he limps to the bus stop outside Brondesbury Station and whispers,

“Cunt.”

The man who has failed to offer help or succour to a single soul since his own joy was ripped from him feels a pang of guilt at mocking a cripple on his way to his do-gooding. Barnes is no cunt, and he is too far away to hear. The word fizzles in the dead air, its aftertaste a slow, repulsive rot in the clown’s mouth. He spits, but it tastes no better and in that moment, her realises something. Barnes is happy. In the cavernous chambers of his heart where, in Saxon times, a conscience once dwelled, a kneeling child lights a small candle that immediately goes out again.