Nick was freezing when he woke. His duvet was thin and his too-small pyjamas hadn’t kept him warm. They’d moved into a two-up two-down council house a few years before but it still wasn’t a happy home. There was a time, when his mum had breast cancer, that Nick had seen a different side to his dad, but once Mum had been given the all clear, it was as though all the fear, all the worry his dad had felt, transcended into anger. He was worse now than he had ever been. Nick had begged his mum to leave – Dad was becoming more and more violent – but she’d say to Nick: ‘He’s still in there. The man I fell in love with. Remember when I was ill?’ But Nick thought, if you had to be dying for someone to be nice to you, they probably didn’t love you as much as you hoped. He wouldn’t think about that today though. It was his birthday. Nineteen! Although there would be no party, no decent presents, he didn’t care. He didn’t want anything except for his mum to be away from his dad. Nick worked full-time at Tesco now and rarely spent any money on himself. Everything went into a savings account. One day he’d buy a big house like the one mum cooed over on the property programme last night, with the island in the kitchen and the copper pans hanging above the Aga. He’d paint the kitchen sunflower, his mum’s favourite colour, and while he went to work, she could bake cakes. She would never have to work again.

Nick caught a whiff of something delicious, not the usual mildew smell that filled the house as the patches of mould climbed the walls, clung to the ceiling, but sausages. Nick jumped up and pulled on a pair of socks before padding downstairs towards the kitchen as quietly as he could. His dad liked to lie-in.

‘Happy birthday, Nick!’

Mum crossed the kitchen and wrapped her arms around him; she smelled of oil and cleaning products. Nick hugged her fiercely.

‘You must be shattered?’ He stepped back and studied her face. She looked so much older than Richard’s mum, although they must be around the same age. The wrinkles surrounding her eyes definitely weren’t caused by laughter.

‘I’m fine.’ She smiled but it was only with her mouth.

Nick reached to switch on the kettle to make her a cup of tea, but she slapped his hand lightly.

‘Sit down and open your presents.’

On the table were two gift-wrapped boxes. He picked them up one by one and shook them, trying to guess what was inside. He slid his fingers between the join in the wrapping paper on the one he thought might be a book and eased it open, wanting to savour the moment.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ He flipped open the cover on the encyclopaedia and ignored the ‘Happy Christmas, Emma!’ inscription on the inside.

‘If you’re going to find a better job than shelf stacking, you’ll need to know all that stuff,’ Mum said. She had wanted him to stay on at school, go to uni, but how could he? He needed to be a man. Contribute to the housekeeping. He’d left school as soon as he had turned sixteen, eager to be bringing in money, but without sitting his exams it had been hard to find anything decent and he’d taken the first job he’d been offered.

‘Open the other one before the sausages burn.’

Nick picked up the other box. He had no idea what could be inside. Smoke began to rise from the frying pan so he tore the paper off quickly.

‘Mum!’ Nick stared at the Nokia box, almost too afraid to look inside in case it housed something other than a mobile phone. He’d wanted one for ages and, more than once, he’d been tempted to buy one out of his wages but they had an unspoken agreement almost, him and Mum. Every penny would go towards their future.

‘I hope it’s okay. It’s nothing fancy but you can text and call. I’ve topped it up with £5 credit for you.’

Nick slid the packaging out of the box. It was nothing like the one Richard had. There was no Internet, not even a camera, but Nick turned it over in his hands as though it were a gold bar. ‘It’s brill. Thanks.’

‘Tuck in or you’ll be late for work.’ Mum slid sausages from the pan onto a plate.

Nick forked baked beans into his mouth as he switched on his phone, and it wasn’t until he was halfway through his breakfast he realised his mum wasn’t eating.

‘Where’s yours?’

‘I’ll have mine later with Dad.’

Nick hesitated. His mum was getting so thin he often wondered whether she ate at all.

‘Really. Hurry up before yours gets cold.’

Nick finished, and his mum took his plate to rinse, and as he stood he couldn’t help but pull open the fridge door. There were only three sausages inside, and he knew his mum wouldn’t be eating at all.

His phone felt hard and heavy in his bag as he walked to work, a constant reminder his mum had yet again gone without.

‘Happy birthday, mate.’ Richard pressed a box into Nick’s hands when they met for lunch, and he sauntered into the chip shop to buy them both lunch, as though it wasn’t a big deal he’d just given Nick an iPhone. Nick had only ever seen a picture of one – apparently, they were going to be huge but they were almost impossible to get.

‘What the fuck? I can’t accept this, mate.’ Nick tried to give it back to Richard when he returned with bags of hot, salty chips and golden fish. It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful, but Richard gave him so much and it didn’t seem fair the only thing Nick had ever been able to do in return was teach Richard how to play football. Even if he was bloody good at it.

‘I want you to have it.’ Richard opened a sachet of ketchup with his teeth.

‘I think—’

‘You think too much,’ Richard cut in. ‘I think you want one. I think you should have one. Seriously.’ He leaned closer to Nick and lowered his voice. ‘I’ll always do what I think is right for you. No arguing. We’re mates. We’ve got each other’s backs, right?’

‘Always.’ Nick felt his grin almost split his face in two as he opened the box and pulled out the handset. ‘They’ve only just come out though. How did you manage to get one?’

Richard tapped the side of his nose. ‘I’ve contacts. I can sort anything out. It’s not what you know—’

‘It’s amazing!’

‘It’s nothing.’ Richard shrugged.

But it was something. To Nick. ‘I owe you one.’

‘Oh, you do,’ said Richard. ‘I won’t forget.’

Walking home after work Nick passed the pawn shop and a thought struck him. He didn’t need two phones. He could sell one and buy his mum something nice without it affecting their savings. Some flowers, perhaps, or chocolates?

The bell trilled as he pushed open the door. The smell of coffee rushed towards him. The man behind the counter, comedy moustache, eyed Nick suspiciously.

‘If it’s nicked, I’m not interested.’

‘No. It was a present. Honest.’ Nick put his rucksack on the counter and unzipped his bag. He rummaged through his Tesco uniform until his hand connected with the chunky Nokia. As Nick began to pull it out of his bag, he remembered the radiance on Mum’s face as she’d watched him unwrap it that morning, her hands raw and red from cleaning, as she served up the breakfast she couldn’t afford to eat herself. Nick dropped the handset as though it had suddenly burned him. Instead, he pulled out the iPhone Richard had given him and tried to ignore the heavy feeling in his heart as he saw the man’s eyes light up, and although he only offered Nick a fraction of what he knew it must have cost, he stuffed the notes into his pocket anyway.

The shouting was audible before Nick had even unlocked the front door.

‘You spent the housekeeping on a fucking phone?’

He hesitated, as though his dad’s anger was pushing him back. He stood on the front doormat, clutching the baby pink carnations he’d bought. Tucked inside his bag was a box of Terry’s All Gold. There was still some cash left he’d give his mum.

‘It’s his birthday. Did you even remember? He deserves something nice.’

‘’Course I remembered. I’m not fucking stupid. Unlike him. Leaving school without any bloody qualifications.’ The kind voice his dad had used when his mum was ill was just a distant memory. He seemed even angrier now she was better than before she got sick. Mum said it was because he’d been so scared she’d die, but that didn’t make sense to Nick at all.

‘He’s not the stupid one,’ Mum screamed.

The sound of the slap reverberated through the house. Nick dropped his bag and the flowers and flew through to the kitchen.

‘Mum?’

Mum stood, back to him, hands on sink, leaning over the bowl as though she might be sick.

‘It’s all right, love. You go upstairs.’

‘No.’ Nick’s voice wobbled but he was a man now. He worked full-time, and the days of hiding under his covers, hands pressed over his ears, were over. Never again would he pretend to believe the stories Mum had walked into a cupboard or slipped getting out of the bath. Besides he had one advantage over his dad now. He was taller. Fitter. Faster. He shouldn’t be scared, but Nick felt his knees begin to shake as his dad took a step towards him, hand raised.

His mum cried: ‘Leave him alone’, and spun around, and Nick saw her swollen lip, the blood trickling down her chin.

He knew he had a fraction of a second to decide what to do. To walk away or hit back. There was a buzzing in his ears and his blood felt as though it was on fire as it crackled and steamed through his veins. His dad’s hand connected with his cheek, causing his teeth to slam together, and Nick felt an invisible force pull his fist back and pound it into his dad’s face again and again. His vision tunnelled. He was surrounded by blackness but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. In the background, his mum screamed, bone crunched, and Nick grunted with each and every punch. The anger he felt over every past hurt his father had caused teemed with the anger he felt now. It wasn’t until his dad fell limp and loose, Nick released his grip on the front of his dad’s shirt, and Kevin, for Nick swore then and there he would never call him dad again, crumpled to the floor. Gradually the thrumming in his ears subsided, the black dots in front of his eyes faded away, and as Nick stared with horror at the bruised and bloodied face lying before him, he knew he’d gone too far.