Davey had brought home a new school photograph. Annie always ordered them secretly, then stowed them away in her treasure trove of memories. Stuart didn’t care much for photos - he was like Father in that respect, as he was in more ways than he’d care to acknowledge - but Annie treasured these happy snapshots, frozen aside from their earthly contexts.

She picked out her well-thumbed picture of baby Joe, the only photograph ever taken of her younger brother before he died. Mum had pressed it into her hand the day they’d all been turfed out of Bath Road, the day she’d watched the bulldozers destroy their family home. Joe was such a beautiful baby, and there was something of him in Davey. Only in Davey, there was also an unfortunate helping of Stuart.

She squinted at the digital cloak on the teasmaid; he’d be home soon enough expecting his ‘dinner’. She’d better get a move on.

Downstairs in the living room, Davey was watching Rainbow on the new television. Everyone in the street was fascinated by what was on ‘the tele’; but while Stuart boasted with pride in his seven year old son's knowledge of the on-screen characters, Annie watched his little red cheeks turn pasty.

‘Davey, why don’t you go play outside, love?’ she said, ‘Luke’s out on his bike.’

Davey’s eyes didn’t move from the screen. ‘No thanks, Mum’, he said, wrapped up in the high-pitched singing of a pink furry hippo, ‘Luke’s boring.’ Annie hated that word, and she knew he'd learned it from Stuart. There seemed little point even attempting to assert herself as anything but the carer in Davey’s life. Daddy held all the influence around here; she’d lost her son to him years ago.

‘Okay. Just watch you don't forget about yer nice bike from Gran ‘n’ Granfer’, Annie said. Davey made a face and she left him in his pixelled paradise, walking into the kitchen to cook the tea.

Thursday night was Shepherd’s Pie. He would expect it, and his expectations could not be disappointed. So disinterested in food these days, Annie found it a struggle to eat enough to remain above suspicion. And yet she almost needn't bother. Invariably wolfing down his own tea with a large glass of lambrusco and his eyes fixed on the goggle box, Stuart would hardly notice if her fork never even made it to her mouth.

The doorbell rang.

‘Sorry, Bunny! Left my key in the office!’ Stuart insisted on calling her this, though she made no secret of how much she hated it. He said she was his cute little bunny, timid and shy. It was not what she had envisaged being for anyone. He kissed her forcefully on the lips, leaving the imprint of his own on her thawing mouth. Then he handed her his coat and strode into the living room, dumping his briefcase behind the sofa.

‘So how’s Daddy’s best boy?’ he said, scooping Davey up in his arms and whizzing him around his head. Davey was screaming with delight and Annie shrunk beneath the noise. Not so much from envy or jealousy anymore – she’d long since stopped seeking any attention from Stuart. But the pain of her insignificance in either of these boys’ lives still stung.

‘Daddy’s got Davey a pressie!’ said Stuart. Davey jumped up and down on the sofa, love written all over his face, while Annie grimaced and bit her tongue. Again? Almost every other day now, the king would return to his castle bearing gifts, and still her housekeeping money made it a challenge of thrift and maths to put food on the table - or rather on the laps - of her family. An Action Man, straight off an ad on the box. Davey had more toys than all the other children in the road put together. No surprise really, that he’d lost interest in playing with them.

Stuart switched to the news and collapsed into his chair as the egg timer rang, summoning Annie back to her cooking.