in the weeks between Broken being committed and Broken being released, the Cunninghams were oblivious. Jed crammed homework. Skunk stared out the window and worried about her new school term. Cerys mourned the death of her relationship with Mike by pouring her heart out to Archie during long nights spent on the sofa: He was the love of my life. I miss him so badly. I want him back. I just want him back. Archie, in turn, admitted he had been relieved when his wife finally left him: We married too young. We had kids too quick. She never bonded with them and she never really loved me. They shared wine and cigarettes and, one Sunday evening at the start of September, they shared each other in Cerys's bedroom. After, they lay side by side in awkward silence and stared off in different directions, then Archie made his excuses and headed back to his own room. As he crept across the landing in his boxers and his T-shirt, Skunk came out of the bathroom. He kissed the end of her nose and wondered if his breath smelled of wine or cigarettes or Cerys. He said, Go back to bed, Skunk. I love you, little darling. Skunk climbed in beside her Snoopy Dog and pulled her Jedi Knight duvet up under her chin and said what she always said before sleep-time, softly, under her breath: Goodnight, Daddy; Goodnight, Jed; Goodnight, Cerys; and finally, silently, without even breathing in case Archie should hear her, Goodnight, Mother. Sleep tight. Sweet dreams. I miss you.
The next day was the first day of the new school term. Skunk brushed her teeth and showered and dressed in her brand-new uniform, then went downstairs to open negotiations for an increase in her pocket money. She sat opposite Archie at the breakfast table and pulled his cigarettes towards her: ‘Smoking Causes Cancer.’
‘Yes,’ Archie said. ‘I know that.’ He pulled the cigarettes away. Skunk made a grab for his lighter. He pulled that away as well. ‘Skunk,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
‘More pocket money please.’ She looked at him and nodded. ‘I'll need much more than fifteen pounds a week at secondary school. Jed says there's a tuck shop.’
‘OK,’ Archie said. ‘Fifteen pounds fifty.’
‘Daddy. Fifty pence is nothing. I can't do much with that.’
‘Yes you can,’ Archie said. ‘You can save it. Fifty pence a week is two pounds a month. Two pounds a month is twenty-four pounds a year. Twenty-four pounds a year is a lot of money. That's a bigger rise than I got this year.’
Skunk frowned. ‘What's a rise?’
‘It's what your daddy's taking out of you.’ Cerys buttered toast and put it on the table, then put her hands on her hips and looked at Archie. ‘Why don't you just give her what she wants? That's what you normally do.’
‘God,’ Archie said, ‘you sound like …’ he was about to say ‘her mother’, but stopped himself in time. Instead, he said, ‘She needs to learn the value of money.’
‘Make her work for it then. That's what my mum and dad did with me. I had a list of chores to do. If I did them, I got money. If I didn't, I got bugger all.’
‘But I already pay you to do the chores,’ Archie said.
‘I'm not saying she has to do household chores,’ Cerys lied. ‘Get her a paper round. That'll teach her the value of money.’
‘She's too young to do a paper round. You have to be twelve or thirteen. She's only just turned eleven.’
‘You sure about that?’ Cerys asked. ‘Sunrise Oswald's the same age as Skunk, and she's got a paper round. I've seen her dumping what she can't be bothered to deliver down Shamblehurst Lane.’ Cerys was only part right here: although Sunrise Oswald did a paper round, it wasn't actually her paper round. It was Susan Oswald's paper round. Susan subcontracted it to Sunrise because she hated getting up in the mornings.
Sunrise had agreed to take on responsibility for Susan's paper round because she needed Bob Oswald to know she had a regular source of income.
Sunrise needed Bob Oswald to know she had a regular source of income to explain the fact she always had money.
Sunrise always had money because everyone in her form class paid her two pounds fifty a week to stop her sisters from killing them. From today though, now they were in secondary school, rumour had it Sunrise would be putting this charge up to a fiver.
Which was the reason Skunk needed more pocket money.
She said, ‘I'm only asking for twenty pounds a week, Daddy. Fiona Torby gets thirty.’
Archie sighed. ‘Seventeen pounds. Final offer.’
Skunk took a moment to consider. ‘Not fair,’ she said. ‘Jed gets twenty.’
‘Of course Jed gets twenty. He's older. And he has to put up with you.’
‘But,’ Skunk said bitterly, ‘seventeen pounds is nothing.’
‘It's much more than I get,’ Cerys lied. ‘And I have to put up with all three of you.’
‘Seventeen pounds,’ Archie repeated, trying to ignore Cerys.
‘Twenty,’ Skunk said.
‘Seventeen.’
‘Daddy, you're a tightwad.’
‘Call me what you like. Seventeen pounds is my final offer. Going … going …’
Skunk reluctantly accepted Archie's final offer, then set off for school with Jed. Her first day at Drummond Secondary School was quieter than she had expected. This was partly due to the fact the Oswalds were still at the seaside. It was also partly due to the fact no one seemed remotely interested in flushing her head down any of the toilets. These weren't the only brilliant things about her first day at Drummond Secondary: her form teacher turned out to be Cerys's ex-boyfriend, Mike. Skunk walked into Class 7D and there he was, perched on the edge of his desk. Hi, Mike, she said, how's it going? To which he said, It's Mr Jeffries in school, Skunk, not Mike, to which she said, It's Miss Cunningham to you, Mr Jeffries, not Skunk, and he looked at her the same way Jed did whenever she'd said something really stupid.
Skunk liked her new school, but not the playtimes. At home, when Cerys was trying to have a calm-down smoke and Skunk was making too much noise, Cerys would yell, For fuck's sake, Skunk, go play something, will you, and Skunk would go play Xbox, which was fun. Playtime at Drummond Secondary, however, was not fun. It was a case of dodging marauding gangs of older children who were on the lookout for brand-new mobile phones. Skunk had seen enough of this behaviour through the railings of Drummond Primary's playground next door to know how dangerous playtimes at her new school were going to be, and spent both the morning and afternoon breaks with her back to a wall and her mobile phone hidden deep in her satchel. A couple of Year 7 students who had been to Berrywood Primary – which, unlike Drummond, didn't have a secondary school anywhere near it – lost their mobiles within minutes of playtime starting. Another ex-Berrywood Year 7 student had brought a skipping rope with her. She lost that as well. Skunk went over and told her she was lucky Susan Oswald was still at the seaside: she would have throttled her with it, not nicked it.
After school, Skunk walked home with Jed. When the two of them got there, Cerys was supposed to make sure they did their homework, but an arrangement existed here where all three of them could tell Archie they had done this, and it wouldn't be classed as a lie. Jed sat watching telly and Skunk went up to play Xbox. Cerys sat in the kitchen and smoked. As Archie was hoping for a repeat of the previous night's performance with Cerys, he got home from work earlier than usual. The four of them sat down to eat dinner together. Jed questioned his dad about work:
‘Did you get any mass murderers off today, Dad?’
‘Nope.’ Archie forked his lasagne. ‘All I did today was meet with tosspot partners who don't know their elbows from their arses. Fucking place.’
‘Fuck's a bad word,’ Skunk told him.
‘Only when you and Jed use it,’ Archie said. ‘It's like cars, Skunk. It's OK for me to drive a car because I'm old enough and suitably trained, but it's not OK for you to drive one because you're too young. Swearing's exactly the same. OK?’