Nick kicked the scrunched up Coke can to Richard. It clattered as it skittered across the pavement. Richard deftly toed it back but Nick was hunched forward, hands pressed against a stitch in his side, gasping.

‘They think it’s all over, it is now!’ Richard covered his head with his T-shirt and ran up the road, arms stretched high, chanting ‘champion, champion’, only stopping when he collided with the postbox. Nick couldn’t help laughing as Richard crumpled to the ground.

‘Serves you right.’ Nick stood over his friend, offered his hand and pulled him to his feet. ‘I don’t know how you can run after that huge dinner. Your mum is an amazing cook.’

‘Yours can’t be that bad?’

‘She is,’ Nick said; as he spoke the lie, guilt seemed to increase the pain in his side. But it seemed easier to let Richard believe he never asked him to tea as his mum was a rubbish cook; rather that than telling him they couldn’t afford the extra ingredients for guests. Besides which, there was no way he’d invite his friend into a lounge that reeked of stale lager and rotting dreams. He blanched at the image of Richard perched on the edge of the threadbare armchair, avoiding the spring poking through the seat.

Nick checked his watch, holding his wrist close to his eyes so he could see past the crack in the screen. ‘I’d better go. See you at school tomorrow.’

‘Not if I see you first, loser.’ Richard slapped him on the back and jogged past him. If anyone else had called Nick a loser he’d have been upset, but not Richard. On the first day of school, Sammy Whilton had laughed at Nick’s sandwiches wrapped in a plastic Tesco bag. Everyone else had swanky lunch boxes. Richard had stuck up for him, and at playtime he had sat on a bench in the playground, watching, as Nick raced around with a football, never once losing control. The next day, Richard had brought in a Power Rangers lunch box – ‘it’s old’ he had shrugged – but it looked new. In return Richard asked Nick to teach him to play football; his family weren’t big on sport. Nick had spent many hours in his small backyard, avoiding his dad, learning to dribble, shoot, head the ball. As he passed on what he had learned, he knew he and Richard would be friends for life.

Now, they were twelve and had just started secondary and were still as close as ever.

Nick jabbed his key into the lock and pushed open the front door. On the mat were his mum’s shoes – as frayed and tired looking as she was.

‘Mum?’ She should be at work.

‘In here, love.’ There was a forced brightness in her tone, and the first thought that sprang into Nick’s head was ‘what has Dad done now?’ Stepping into the lounge he saw his parents sitting together, and his hands furled into fists behind his back but then he noticed something he hadn’t seen for years and he wasn’t sure if he felt relieved or repulsed.

His mum and dad were holding hands. And this was more frightening than the usual shouting. Nick began to shake. He knew whatever his mum was about to tell him it would be bad. Very bad.

* * *

‘Do you think Mum will be okay?’ Nick and his father stood side by side scraping potatoes with blunt knives. Neither of them could work the peeler; Nick’s knuckles were bleeding from trying. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted reassurance from his dad and, for a moment, it had drawn them close together. Fear slithered into the darkest corners of his mind. Cancer. How can such a small word be the disease that was destroying his mum from the inside out?

‘’Course.’ Dad tugged a box of fish fingers from the back of the freezer. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he shouted as they tumbled to the floor, packet splitting, golden breadcrumbs and clumps of ice slithering under the cooker. ‘Loads of people survive breast cancer nowadays,’ he said as he dropped to his knees and began cleaning up the mess. As he stood at the sink, rinsing the fish fingers he had picked off the floor under the tap, his shoulders shook. He looked as small and scared as Nick felt.

Later, they had cramped around the small kitchen table eating lumpy mash and charred fish fingers. A cool breeze filtered through the kitchen window, which was cracked open to release the smell of burned oil. The three of them had made stilted conversation the way people do when they are not used to each other’s company. Dad didn’t have a lager. His hand shook as he picked up his glass of water. Nick couldn’t stop watching him, watching Mum. Dad loved her. He never would have thought.

After they had pushed food around their plates for ten uncomfortable minutes, Nick offered to wash up. He stuck his head around the lounge door when he had finished. Elvis crooned from the record player that was once his grandmother’s. He didn’t know how to feel as he watched his mum and dad in an awkward dance. Feet shuffling over the threadbare carpet that once was red but now sun-faded pink. Dad’s arm was around Mum’s waist, and she rested her hand on his shoulder. The naked bulb hanging from the ceiling picked out the diamonds in the emerald ring Mum always wore. After the song had finished there was the crackle and hiss as the needle circled empty grooves. Nick’s parents didn’t move. Arms wrapped around each other. Once more the atmosphere was thick, not with bitterness this time, but with love.

They felt something akin to a family. Nick hoped it wasn’t too late.