‘He caught you?’
‘He’d been a Pinkerton, I think. He was creeping around the windows of our bungalow at night. When I got back to Los Angeles they told me they knew everything and I had to marry this boy or be disinherited. So I was disinherited. I was twenty-two.’
I finally put down the cold toast in my hand. It plinked on the plate. I tried to square all this – the rending of ties, the gothic glitter – with the winking girl behind the bar. ‘Why did you say you were an i***t?’
‘Ah, well. Because that girl left me. Because if I had held on another three years I would have had a trust, which I don’t think they could have taken away without a lawsuit, which would have meant their lesbian daughter in the papers, which they never would have allowed. Youth – you know.’
‘So you have nothing?
