Just a little longer, surely, until his dose kicks in. Around them, the house has closed down for the night. They’ve heard his mother’s bedside light clicking off, Mehul has shuffled to the toilet for the last time. There’s the ground bass, felt more than heard, of his father’s snoring. Beside him, Maya whispers: ‘You can tell me anything.’ He thinks if he waits for a while, he might still get away with it. Then she says: ‘Chocolate?’ The family joke, the word you’ll always respond to, even through strategic deafness, and he laughs, despite himself. The mattress dips as she squirms onto her side. ‘You can tell me anything. I’m not going anywhere.’ ‘Nothing to tell,’ he says. ‘Go to sleep. I’m tired.’ ‘Liar.’ ‘Go to sleep.’ She moves closer. There’s the warmth of her – and those cold, cold feet. She hooks one over his, her arch across the front of his foot. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Stop me when I’ve got it right. You’ve gambled away all our money, you want to join a circus, you want to be a girl, you’ve lost your job—’ ‘Stop it, Maya.’ ‘Is it the job?’ ‘Please.
