Gene dropped a few notes on the counter, and glanced to the left when the shop bell rang. A woman was struggling to get the door open; her kid's pushchair caught by its wheel. 'Forty Marlboro, Stan. And a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red.'

'Aye.' Stan turned to get the fags and whiskey from behind him. 'Still on holiday, Gene? Not like you.'

'Yeah, well.'

'Not bad weather for it. You'll be able to get out in the garden a bit. You off to Blackpool? Or was it Lytham you an' Barb go to?'

Gene idly counted the change in his hand, flicking coins over one by one with his thumbnail. 'Yeah. Lytham. You know she – oh bloody hell, hang on…' He strode over to the door, and held it wide for the woman. Her child had started to cry. 'Come on, luv.'

'Oh, ta.' She dislodged the pram, and gave him a grateful smile. He nodded at her, and waited for her to manoeuver herself inside before going back for his stuff. Stan was looking to the next customer, so he didn't bother explaining that it's been eighteen months since Barbara left. She used to shop here, but there was a row about the state of the bread, or something. If Stan thought it was weird that Gene did the shopping now, he never mentioned it.

'Take care now, Gene.'

'You an' all, mate.'

He lit a fag as soon as he hit the pavement, and looked right and left before moving on. There wasn't many people around, and the few he saw were those he recognised on sight. He should be able to get home without having to talk to anyone. He flipped the collar of his coat up against the chilly March breeze, and walked, head down, hands in his pockets with his carrier bag banging against his leg. It was ten in the morning, and he'd already accomplished everything he had to do today.

He reached the top of the road, turned left, walked the house-length to the top of his own street, turned left again. Only fifty yards to his own front door, and a glance up confirmed no people around. His shoulders relaxed, and he raised his head. The sun was out, for all the good it did against the cold in the air, but it was better than rain. Maybe he would get out in the garden later. The grass would be knee-height soon, if he didn't do something about it.

'Who's that?'

He hadn't seen the open door, and his stomach twisted. Then relaxed. 'It's Gene, Mrs Braithwaite. You all right, sweet'eart?

Mrs Braithwaite was nearly ninety, and almost completely blind. She was in the doorway of her house, leaning on a walking stick, wrapped in layers of cardigans and an old pinny. Her hair was white and curled around her wrinkled face, brushed to tidy perfection. He recalled her daughter came to see to her in the mornings and at night, otherwise she'd never manage in the house on her own. 'Oh, hello Gene. Not at work today?'

'No, not today, luv.'

'I've been waitin' for someone to come by. You couldn't drop in later could you, duck? I've a tap drippin' in the kitchen, and it's driving me mad. Deirdre said she'd ask Martin, but he's workin' away until the weekend.'

The son-in-law. He tried to remember what Barb used to say about him. A sullen piece of work, apparently. Lorry driver. 'Yeah, no problem. I'll have to fetch me tools out the garage. Might take a bit to find them. After lunch all right?'

'You're a love. I'll get the biscuits out for you.'

He smiled a bit, even though she couldn't see. 'That'd be nice. Mind how you go, now. You alright getting back inside?'

She went 'pfft' at him, and tapped her stick on the ground. 'Reckon I can manage that, my lad. Just knock an' come in later, though. Save me gettin' out of me chair.'

'Will do. See you later.'

He walked on a few steps, then watched her safely inside. It was stupid, really, he told himself. To get nervous about a simple walk to the shop in the morning. Two weeks of driving into town for fags and a paper before he told himself to stop being a girl, and show his face. Two more weeks of hanging around here, and only the odd strange look to deal with. It wasn't so bad.

He turned, and headed for his own door. At least he had something useful to do today, now. And the sun was shining, and there'll be whiskey later. There's a pie for lunch, and he might phone his bookie this afternoon. It wasn't so bad.

He opened his gate, and stopped short. The faint tendrils of optimism withered to nothing. His shoulders dropped, in resignation this time. He'd only been gone half an hour. It was long enough. Because someone had painted on his door, bright red letters that screamed to the world.

QUEER.

###

He left the door wide open, so the word wouldn't be so visible. It hadn't fully dried; thick, glutinous oil paint that wouldn't wipe away without leaving stains forever. He'd have to scrape it clean, and repaint. He stood and looked at it, still holding his bag. It had run a bit, turning it into the blood-drip font of old horror films. Here be monsters.

The phone rang next to him. He picked it up without moving. 'Yeah?'

There was a pause. 'Guv? Phyllis.'

His head snapped up. For a long few moments, not a single word appeared in his head. There was only the sick nerves, present all morning, rising to block his throat.

'…Gene?'

'Yeah. Hello.'

She hesitated again, so it wasn't just him this was awful for. 'Uh…it's just, we had a phone call. One of your neighbours said-' Gene leaned forward until his forehead rested on the door, and closed his eyes, '-there was someone…vandalising, your house.'

'Painting on the door, you mean.'

'…yeah.'

Oh, God.

'Do you want us to send someone?'

He snorted, too high, a sound of surprise and are you joking? 'You know the answer to that, or you wouldn't have rung first.'

'Well, I just thought – y'know.'

'Yeah. I know.' He sighed, and straightened up. 'It's fine.'

She was quiet again, and he almost hung up. But then; 'it's not fine, Guv.'

'Well, it's something I'll have to get used to, by the look of it.'

'They'll get bored eventually.'

'Lucky me.'

His tone seemed to pull her out of her sympathetic platitudes – hardly her strong suit at any time, but he appreciated the effort – and she turned brisk once more. 'All right. Well. I'll tell uniform it's nothing.'

'Yeah. Ta, Phyllis.'

He didn't put the phone down. Neither did she. There was a question burning his tongue, but he couldn't bring himself to ask. Instead, he said, 'everything all right there?'

'Same as ever.' Her tone did not convince. He could imagine that it was tidier, at the very least. And she still didn't end the conversation.

'Well – all right. Thanks for ringing.'

'Guv-'

He waited, but it seemed like she didn't know what to say. Or whether she was allowed to say what she wanted to, though that rarely stopped her in the past. He waited, both willing her to speak, and dreading what she might come out with.

'Should I tell him?'

He bit his lower lip, and shook his head. 'No.'

'He should know what he-'

'-if he doesn't by now, telling him this won't help.' He had to get off the line. This wasn't what he wanted to hear. 'I have to go. Ta, Phyllis.'

He put the receiver down, and took a deep breath. Just get rid of it, and it'd be finished with. As he was searching out some cloths and an old tin of gloss from the shed, it occurred to him that she might not have phoned just to spare him embarrassment. It might well have been that the lads objected to coming. It's not as though the police took harassment of queers seriously.

##

People walked by while he was scraping the word (queer, queer, queer) off the door. One or two were people he knew. He didn't look at anyone. Alfie Barnett, a bloke he'd played darts against dozens of times, stopped in his peripheral vision. Gene didn't look around, and could feel the man reading what was still printed into the paintwork. He walked on without saying hello. Gene tightened his mouth into a line, and kept going. It took two hours to clear it and get the first new coat drying. He drank whiskey with his lunch.

##

He rapped hard on Mrs Braithwaite's door, and opened it. 'You here, Mrs B?'

'No, I'm dancin' the Can-Can at the Moulin Rouge. Come on in, Gene. Daft sod.'

'Oi. I'm doing you a favour here.' He smiled, slow and lopsided, and rounded the corner into the front room. Mrs Braithwaite was bundled up in front of a smoking fire, blanket over her knees. 'Blimey. You need your chimney swept.'

'Deirdre said she'd get Martin on it. Did you find your tools all right?'

'Yeah, all sorted. Just take a jiffy.'

'Stick the kettle on while you're there, luv. Biscuits an' sugar are on the side.'

'You're a star.'

He wandered on through to a kitchen that was identical to his own, only pristine, where his was a tip. He turned the water off at the mains while the kettle boiled, and took her a cup through. She looked like she might be dozing, but she still said, as he set it down, 'you been in the pub?'

'…yeah.'

'Well, mind how you go with your spanner, then.'

She reminded him of his mother. He patted her arm, and left her to it. The room swam a bit as he spooned sugar into his cup, but he thought he hadn't drunk that much. He might have spilled few drops on his shirt, which is why it smelled strong. Maybe.

His right hand still wasn't fixed from the damage he'd done the night Gary-John Lancett died. The cuts were healed, but the knuckle he broke still ached, and was double its normal size. He had trouble closing his fist properly, and two of his fingers couldn't straighten all the way. The scar would disappear almost completely, in time. The doctor hadn't understood why he'd laughed when he was told that.

He looked at it as he twisted the spanner, and felt the vague, pinching pain up his nerves, all the way to the elbow. It didn't stop him working, so long as he concentrated on clenching it hard. He'd even got the all-clear for real work, for all the use that'd do. The thought, as always, gave him a sinking sensation right down the middle, and he stopped to take a swig from his hip flask. There was no point thinking about it, but he couldn't stop. It was what he woke up with, and what he passed out to at night. That, and…the other thing.

'You all right in there, Gene?'

'Yes, luv. Nearly done.'

He put his hip flask away, and pulled the main part of the tap out to get the broken washer off the bottom. It was held in by a small screw, so he grasped it in his right hand, and set to it with his left. It was awkward, he was drunk, but he got it undone eventually. The washer looked like it'd been there since the turn of the century, and was embedded into the bottom groove of the metal. He sighed, and started to dig it out.

The whiskey probably helped, in the end. When the screwdriver slipped off the ancient rubber, and jammed into the soft flesh at the join of his thumb, he barely felt it. There was a sensation of impact, and then a muted flare of pain where the corner of the flat head ripped his skin apart. He saw the pitted brown and silver tip swivel, pull the wound open and push inside; his mouth opened in surprise but no sound came out. He just dropped the whole thing, tool and tap, and watched blood dribble down his wrist.

'What was that? You're not breakin' my sink, are you, Gene?'

'No, it's fine. Just me screwdriver.'

The washer lay in the stainless steel basin, curled in on itself, rigid with age and damage. He dropped his hand to his side, picked up his stuff, and wondered, really, whether any of this was worth it.

##

At night, he sat in his armchair and drank. When the pain throbbed too much, he swallowed another mouthful, and then looked at the hole he'd made. It had taken a while for the bleeding to stop, because the cut was wide, and deep. It needed stitches. He put the fingers and thumb of his other hand either side of the wound, and squeezed. The clot was too deep to allow it to bleed again, but the pain was awful. He pressed until he felt sick, then let go.

It had been a month. A month of this. He told himself it was just that today was particularly bad; that he was lucky it had taken this long for the public slurs to start. And tomorrow was going to be worse. Tomorrow was enough to make him want to drink to the end of the bottle, break it, and cut himself so badly there'd be no more pain again. Not that he would. He wasn't a coward. But he couldn't deny the idea wasn't as abhorrent as it should be.

The knock on the door came around eleven. He'd almost reached the bottom of the label, so it took a while to get out of his chair. Blood loss probably didn't help, relatively minor as it was. Maybe they'd go away. Maybe it was a continuation of the paint, and he'd open the door to find nothing, or a bag of burning dog shit, or a couple of mates who wanted to give him a kicking.

The knocking came again, louder this time. He stopped, and listened. A shuffling of feet, maybe. A sniff? Gene shook his head blearily, and leant on the wall. Who was he kidding? Hadn't he been expecting this, at some point?

The air was close to freezing at this time of night. It rushed in as he opened the door, wrapped itself around him but couldn't penetrate. Gene crossed his arms to hide his new injury, and let the hardened pulse of fury burn his drunkenness away.

'What do you want?'

Sam had been looking down. He glanced up now; apologetic, defiant, maybe embarrassed. He shifted from foot to foot, and then stuck his hands in his jeans pockets.

'To talk.'

Gene felt moments ticking by. He should do more than glare at the man. He should punch the living crap out of him and leave him bleeding on the ground. Let him freeze out here on his own.

But he didn't. He just stared. And then, eventually, turned his back. But he left the door open.

'Best come in then.'