Who is this woman? She has never seen her before.

Hazel glances up and down the road one more time. She can’t quite see around a parked car. She thinks for a moment.

‘I always go for early morning walks,’ she tells the lady, ‘but I’ve never seen you before.’

The woman laughs. She has a wide, square mouth and layers of thick hair. Hazel cannot see her eyes from where she is standing but she can see her face, upturned and sharing a joke with the sky. She stops laughing and looks across at Hazel. She looks both ways, glances back at her.

‘Are you going to cross, then?’

Hazel hesitates. She does not want this woman to think there is anything wrong with her. There is nothing wrong with you, Hazel, the counsellor had said, that a few strategies won’t fix. And that’s where I can help…

She steps out.

Unfortunately, she forgets to do a last-minute check and, as she steps off the kerb, a bike careers down the alleyway and swerves out in front of her on silent wheels. Hazel is felled. She feels the rough rubber ploughing into her left side and her first thought is for her sleeve, already dirtied by the postbox. As she falls, she tries to tip vaguely in the other direction so at least the dirt will be symmetrical.

There is a screech of brakes. A wild-eyed paperboy with spots and greasy hair leaps from his bike and lands on the road in front of her, with the bike on top of him. Copies of the Daily Mail and the Times fan across the road. The woman strides over.

‘Bloody hell!’ shouts the paperboy. ‘What is she on? Just steps out into the road without even looking!’

‘Quiet!’ the woman commands. He gawps. She puts a hand on Hazel’s arm. ‘Are you alright?’ she says. ‘I’m afraid I distracted you. I’m sorry.’ She hesitates. ‘I’m Virginia, by the way.’

The boy is picking himself up and dusting down his trousers. ‘I’m Harry, by the way.’ He mimics her voice as he rights his bike and leans it against a wall.

‘I’m Hazel,’ she says. But her voice is muffled due to her being a mound on the ground. There is a thick taste in her mouth. She looks down and, with horror, sees its source: blood. Despairing, she looks up into kind eyes, the sort that are too young for the pleated skin around them.

‘I’ve ruined it now,’ she groans, meaning the jacket.