‘Mr McKay didn’t tell me how much the rent would be.’

‘Of course he didn’t,’ says Georgia, as though this answers the question.

‘It’s just that until I find a job, it’s quite important to know. I need to see if I can afford it.’

‘Twenty-five per cent.’

‘Pardon?’

Georgia sighs. ‘The rent is twenty-five per cent of whatever you earn. After tax, naturally.’

Tess frowns. ‘So . . .’

‘Including food and laundry powder and toilet paper and that sort of thing. You buy your own shampoo and soap, obviously.’

‘I’m sorry, I really don’t understand.’

‘Every week or every month you show me your payslip, or whatever evidence you have. And then you pay me a quarter.’ It’s always the same with new lodgers, she thinks. What is so hard to grasp?

‘But what if I don’t earn very much? Or anything at all?’

‘Then twenty-five per cent of not much is not much and twenty-five per cent of nothing is nothing.’ Georgia rubs her hands together and grins, there is no other word for it. ‘And if you earn a million pounds a month, then you pay a quarter of a million.’

‘And what about electricity and insurance and . . .’ Tess looks around her, ‘ . . . window cleaning?’

‘That all comes out of the twenty-five per cent.’

Tess tries to find a hole in the arrangement. ‘You mentioned food.’

‘Yes. This is a vegetarian house,’ says Georgia firmly, ‘though you can of course eat what you want when you are away from here with your friends.’

‘I don’t have any of those in Edinburgh.’

Georgia ignores this statement. ‘Within these four walls we are vegetarian. There are a couple of other rules but we can go over those when you move in.’

Tess doesn’t notice the ‘we’.

Georgia pushes her chair back from the table. ‘You’ll be needing to see your room. Actually, there are two possible rooms so you can choose which one you prefer.’ She walks towards the hall.

Baxter stands up and tugs at his lead to try to follow, and after a glance at the remaining parkin, Tess decides that it’s probably better that he comes along. While he is definitely house-trained, she isn’t sure he can be trusted in the presence of cake.

‘Count the stairs, please. You never know when you might need to know how many there are.’

Georgia climbs slowly and waits at the top.

‘Twenty-two.’

There is a brief nod. ‘I haven’t rented out the rooms for a couple of years, so the décor is a little tired,’ she waves her hand artistically, ‘but it’s nothing a tin of emulsion won’t fix. You can paint a wall, I suppose?’