“What the fuck—” Mike Temple made a grab for the remote and sank back into his squalid nest of blankets on the sofa. A beer can fell out and rolled onto the floor. “Can’t you get off your arse? Look at you!” Rob gestured at the sofa, the coffee table littered with beer cans, an overflowing ashtray and the crumpled, stained copy of the local paper, open to the jobs page. A few, but only a few, jobs were circled in red pen. “Don’t bother with the paper, Dad. All the jobs are online and you need to get out and talk to people.” “Don’t you tell me what to do,” his dad said. He reached for his cigarettes and lit one. “You shouldn’t smoke in here. It’s bad for the baby, right, Sylvia?” His sister, carrying a tray with mugs of tea and biscuits, shrugged as she made her way across the living room littered with plastic toys. “I tell him all the time.”
