Ernie had been given a .22 rifle for his birthday. His father, who was already slouching on the sofa watching the telly at nine-thirty on this Saturday morning, said. “Let’s see what you can pot, boy. Make yourself useful. Bring us back a rabbit for supper.”

“There’s rabbits in that big field the other side of the lake,” Ernie said. “I seen ’em.”

“Then go out and nab one,” the father said, picking breakfast from between his front teeth with a split matchstick. “Go out and nab us a rabbit.”

“I’ll get yer two,” Ernie said.

“And on the way back,” the father said, “get me a quart bottle of brown ale.”

“Gimme the money, then,” Ernie said.

The father, without taking his eyes from the TV screen, fished in his pocket for a pound note. “And don’t try pinchin’ the change like you did last time,” he said. “You’ll get a thick ear if you do, birthday or no birthday.”

“Don’t worry,” Ernie said.

“And if you want to practise and get your eye in with that gun,” the father said, “birds is best. See ‘ow many spadgers you can knock down, right?”

“Right,” Ernie said. “There’s spadgers all the way up the lane in the ‘edges. Spadgers is easy.”

“If you think spadgers is easy,” the father said, “go get yourself a jenny wren. Jenny wrens is ‘alf the size of spadgers and they never sit still for one second. Get yourself a jenny wren before you start shootin’ yer mouth off about ‘ow clever you is.”

“Now. Albert,” his wife said. looking up from the sink. “That’s not nice, shootin’ little birds in the nestin’ season. I don’t mind rabbits, but little birds in the nestin’ season is another thing altogether.”

“Shut your mouth,” the father said. “Nobody’s askin’ your opinion. And listen to me, boy,” he said to Ernie. “Don’t go waving that thing about in the street because you ain’t got no licence. Stick it down your trouser-leg till you’re out in the country, right?”

“Don’t worry,” Ernie said. He took the gun and the box of bullets and went out to see what he could kill. He was a big lout of a boy, fifteen years old this birthday. Like his truck-driver father, he had small slitty eyes set very close together near the top of the nose. His mouth was loose, the lips often wet. Brought up in a household where physical violence was an everyday occurrence, he was himself an extremely violent person. Most Saturday afternoons, he and a gang of friends travelled by train or bus to football matches, and if they didn’t manage to get into a bloody fight before they returned home, they considered it a wasted day. He took great pleasure in catching small boys after school and twisting their arms behind their backs. Then he would order them to say insulting and filthy things about their own parents.