‘How are they here?’ I mutter to myself, trying to catch my breath, pushing the buggy back along the road until I’m practically running, back along the high street and onto the seafront. As I pass, the doughnut man sticks his head out of his van and calls out, ‘Charlotte! Charlotte! I saved you some fried doughnut holes!’ But I pretend like I haven’t heard him and keep running, looking behind every few steps to see if anyone’s following. They’re not, they’re definitely not, and there’s salt and sand in my eyes and my throat because it’s windy, but I don’t stop until I’m nearly back.

I cry wee wee wee, all the way home.

Through the gate and down the steps, and finally we’re inside the flat. Patio doors locked tight. Main door locked and bolted. Lounge curtains drawn. The cats are all in and accounted for. I take Emily out of the pushchair and she grizzles but I hold her against me, warm and tight so she’s safe. Only then does my breathing slow. I notice the answerphone flashing. You have one new message. I press Play.

Silence.

Crackling.

Breathing.

Click.

Dead tone.

‘Wrong number. Means nothing,’ I reassure Emily, though my heart pounds.

Taking her into the bedroom, I draw the blind and slump down onto the springy single bed the landlord said he’d replace soon. I hold Emily against my neck, skin to skin. Safety. My heart beats in my ears. It’s the only sound.

I stare up at the walls, almost bare apart from the Frida Kahlo print the previous tenant hung there in a glass frame. I don’t even know who Frida Kahlo is but the landlord said the picture was called ‘Time Flies’ and the guy who’d left it was an artist who died of an overdose. Frida’s wearing a white dress in the picture. And there’s a little aeroplane above her head. And a clock on a shelf. Her eyebrows scare me. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what any of it means.

2

Wednesday, 23rd October

My name isn’t Mary. It’s Joanne. Well, that’s the name they gave me. I can’t tell anyone my real name. I might be free now but I still have to imprison parts of myself. And that’s the big part. I don’t have all the children I told the hairdresser about, either, or a successful career in medicine. Or a personal trainer husband called Kaden. I have a new neighbour with that name, and a man’s sweatshirt I got from a charity shop sprayed in a free tester of Paco Rabanne that I pretend belongs to him, but that’s all. Mary is an act. One of my many acts to keep them at bay.