‘Ah, too small, too small,’ she mutters. But no one could accuse Mary of failing to make the best use of her space. In each corner of the lino two-litre bottles of Coke are stacked like bowling pins; on tops of cupboards tins upon tins are stashed, heading slowly towards their expiry date; and on a small shelf above the fridge sits no less than seven boxes of brightly branded breakfast cereals. She buys them for her grandbabies. Though after a long shift on the ward she loves nothing more than to peel off her tights and eat two bowls of Frosties while lying on the sofa listening to The Hour of Inspiration on Filipino radio. Mary shuffles around some things, swears to finally get rid of the dusty sandwich maker and to stop buying five-kilo bags of long grain rice.

Her elbow. Twitch twitch twitch.

‘Stupid old woman,’ she mumbles. She knows she is being ridiculous, worrying too much about everything and nothing. She makes a mental list of her worries and tries to remember what the doctor on The Oprah Winfrey Show said to do with them.

‘You think of a worry, you cross the street,’ she says as she pictures the studio audience of determined, applauding, crying American women.

Mary thinks of each worry: talk that teenagers are gathering in the swing park at night to watch dogs fight; the cockroaches that continuously plague her kitchen; the smell of gas that sometimes lingers on the ninth floor; the woman from the top floor who was robbed of her shopping money last week as she got in the lift. It’s a long list.