It was just as well she lived on the ground floor or it would have been impossible to take everything upstairs in one go, and if she left her shopping behind in the hall some arsehole was bound to nick it. She had learned from experience not to leave anything unattended in the common area of the house where she rented a dingy apartment. One day she was going to tart her place up. She wouldn’t know where to begin, but she had seen a paint and wallpaper shop in York, and intended to go in there and ask. She was definitely going to do it, before the baby was old enough to crawl around and get her fingers in everything, but Ella hadn’t yet had the time, or the energy, to start on her home improvements; plus she needed to save up money to buy paint and brushes. Jessica had not been to see her for a couple of days, and she was running low on cash. Before she had finished stashing her purchases out of sight in the kitchen cupboards, the baby began to cry, its tiny mewling building to a crescendo. It was hard to believe that such a puny creature could make so much noise.

‘Oh fucking hell,’ Ella grumbled. ‘Can’t I get a moment’s peace?’

The noise was impossible to ignore and the baby wasn’t going to let up. Ella warmed a bottle of milk, went into the living room, and put her cigarette down. It was only half smoked so she stubbed it out, leaving the unsmoked half for later. She had only just got settled feeding the baby when the doorbell rang.

‘Oh fucking hell, what now? You’ll have to wait,’ she yelled at the window, ‘I’m feeding my baby.’

The doorbell rang again, sounding somehow insistent this time. Ella thought she knew who was calling.

‘All right, all right, hang on, I’m coming!’

Still holding the baby, she went to open the door.

‘How are you?’ Ella asked, leading the way into the small living room.

‘Can I hold the baby?’ Jessica replied without even pausing to acknowledge Ella’s greeting.

‘Of course, of course. Come on in,’ Ella said, ‘and hello to you too,’ she added under her breath. ‘And how are you today, Ella? It’s nice to see you, Ella.’

Short of slamming the door in Jessica’s face, there was nothing else she could do.

‘Do you want something to drink? I’ve got some coke.’

‘Have you been smoking?’ Jessica asked, frowning and screwing up her nose.

‘Me? Oh no,’ Ella answered. ‘I told you I don’t smoke. Someone was here, er – fixing the oven, and he lit up. Of course I asked him to put it out straight away. You don’t smoke around babies, I said. Everyone knows that. Well, obviously he didn’t know,’ she concluded lamely.