She tries to learn. She finds things out. If someone says a name, she looks it up. They gave her a proper phone, so she can look things up. She looks up ‘BAFTAs’ and ‘Spanx’ and ‘magnum’ and ‘caveat’. Sometimes the answer doesn’t make sense. She looks up ‘Wiltshire’ when Titch tells someone about her other house. Then she finds the address in Titch’s diary and looks that up. She doesn’t know what she expects. She clicks on Street View and she sees it, like in the picture. She leans in close to the screen, and taps the cursor left and right, trying to see around the corner, but it won’t go.

In the Street View picture, you can see the roses but not the smoke.

Rose’s favourite thing in London is getting off the Tube in Chiswick where the flower stall is. It looks like a film. She walks down the road, and if the sun is shining, the red bricks glow bright, a richer red than bricks back home. She has money now, but still not enough to buy things in the shops she passes. Sandwiches for six pounds. Cakes for five pounds. Coffee.

In each window she sees the ghost of herself, lean and stylish and alien.

There is a shop that sells clothes for babies. Everything is white. The shop assistants are all pretty. The people who shop there are white. The mothers are slim with perfect round bumps under stretched stripy maternity dresses, the dads slouchy-fashionable in brown suede boots and turn-ups.

There is a pub that gleams with dazzling mirrors behind the bar, and acres of space between stripped-wood tables laid out with place settings. Waiters move round in tight black shirts and leather half-aprons. Beers are served in giant wine glasses.

There is an estate agent with rows of pictures. House after house after house, with garages and windows and gardens and sofas, and price tags. She had no idea that people were so rich. She has seen these houses, walked down these streets.

Her face is close enough to the window to look her ghost in the eye.

She tries to imagine Aaron here. What would he say? She wants to show him things. She wants to show him this world, the real world.

She walks up the steps to the door of Titch’s block. She uses the key Titch gave her. In the kitchen, when Titch is out, Rose cooks. She makes herself a bowl of pasta, adds cheese and salt, and eats it slowly until her stomach is tight.

There are events to go to, with people. She sees Jacqui and Rachael. They hug her. They say, ‘Oh my god!’ and, ‘I love your hair’ and, ‘Do you want some coke?’

They laugh at nothing. They laugh at her voice, so she doesn’t speak. She doesn’t know what to say in any case.