Blood runs into her face as she leans further over the railings. Her head feels heavy. She wonders, not for the first time, how it would feel to fall from this spot, to flail past all fourteen floors and land at the bottom among the cars and bins. It would probably feel like running the 200 metres. Air hitting your face and taking your hair, your lungs shocked into working harder than you ever knew they could. Pink and yellow splodges dance in front of her eyes as she lifts her head. It’s coming up to noon, only halfway through another monotonous, never-ending day.

She assumes it’s other teenagers that repeatedly bust the locks on the door that leads up to the roof. They leave their crushed cans of Special Brew and ketchup-smeared fish and chip papers across the floor as evidence that they are having a life. She often fantasizes about coming up here at night, catching them in the throes of their late-night parties, tasting beer and throwing fag butts among the pigeon shit with them. If only Dad would let her out of the flat past 6 p.m. No chance.

The sky appears endless. Unnaturally blue today, almost unworldly, not a blemish on it apart from the single white smear of a plane.

Does she need to run back? Has it already been twenty minutes? She doesn’t care. What does time matter if you’re all alone? What difference does any of it make if you’re about to throw yourself from the top of a tower block? She takes three deep breaths but knows that she doesn’t have the confidence to do it. But the thought alone makes her feel like she has some edge on Dad, something that she can do without his permission.

In front of the estate people are living their lives: a child runs, the drunks drink, some girls sunbathe in pink bras and denim shorts, and a lone large figure in billowing purple crosses the grass at speed. Pamela tries to picture who the bodies are, how they would feel if they witnessed a girl fall from the building, their faces upon discovering her body bashed at the bottom. They would be traumatised, she thinks, for a while at least, and then her death would become another estate anecdote. The tale of the broken-hearted teenager with the strict dad. It would become just another story to get passed around the swing park and across balconies, along with tales of who is screwing who and which flat plays host to the biggest number of squatters.

Pamela wishes she could go for a run. She needs to clear her head. Surely Dad will let her out.

‘Please, one hour out,’ she rehearses. It sounds so feeble out loud, so knowing of a negative answer.