‘Spit it out. Three? Seven? If you haven’t counted the nights I don’t know why you’re pestering me about it.’ ‘Seventeen thousand, six hundred and thirty-two,’ Iris said. ‘What the hell? There’s not room for that on this form.’ Demelza looked at her. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and she didn’t seem to blink. ‘If it doesn’t fit on the form then don’t trouble yourself,’ Iris said. She started to get up, relief and disappointment merging. ‘Hang on, hang on.’ Demelza gestured for her to sit back down. ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. It makes more sense anyway now I come to think about it. I’ve never known them to be bothered by an old codger before.’ She sniggered to herself. ‘He was twenty-four.’ ‘Exactly, exactly.’ Demelza scribbled something down on the form. ‘But this is going to be damn tricky, you know. There’s a chance he will have migrated; he could have been abandoned; he could be anywhere. You understand that?’ Iris nodded again. ‘Good. I need you to sign here – just a simple legal clause about safety and the like, and to confirm you know that I’m not legally obliged to produce the husband. If I can’t find him it’s tough titties, OK?’ Iris signed it. ‘And how I track them is business secrets,’ Demelza said. ‘Don’t bother asking me about it. I don’t want competition.’ A plastic singing fish leered down at Iris from the wall. She could feel tendrils of her hair slipping from behind their pins. She always wore her hair up, but once she’d left it down and nobody in her local shop had recognised her. When she’d ventured back she’d had to pretend that she’d been away for a while. She dug a pin in deeper. Was Demelza smirking at her? She hunched down in the chair, 11
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