‘He gives me the creeps. I hate the way he’s always jangling those keys. Remember the last time he came I caught him touching my bra as it dried above the bathtub.’

Emma leans down and kisses Yvonne on the head, ‘You do have some pretty sexy bras for someone not putting out much. You’ll be fine, but keep the rape alarm close.’

Merv stands on the doorstep and jangles the keys in his pocket. He rings the bell for the third time. Yvonne really doesn’t want to let him in. Not while she’s alone in the house.

He rings again.

‘This is ridiculous,’ she tells herself then opens the door. ‘Sorry, I had my headphones on,’ she rattles a pair, the wire hanging unconnected to anything.

‘I told you I was coming round.’

‘Sorry.’

‘In the old days, before all these tenant rights, I would have used my own keys. But now it’s the law, you can’t. Got to be invited in. Like a vampire.’ He bares his slightly yellowed teeth and laughs. As he walks through he stalls at the sight of the blue bed sheet stapled into the doorframe of the downstairs bedroom. ‘What have you done?’

Yvonne grimaces. ‘It just fell off.’

His face reddens. ‘Fell off?’

‘It was loose anyway, I think.’

He walks ahead of her to the kitchen and takes in the piles of dishes in the sink and the overflowing bin.

The kettle knocks the dishes as Yvonne tries to fill it. There’s so much limescale, she tries to scoop some of it out with a spoon, as it rises to the surface. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ She lifts two mugs from the draining board and out of force of habitat sniffs them.

‘Think I’m alright for tea,’ Merv says.

‘My housemate is upstairs sleeping.’

Merv makes an exaggerated gesture of shuffling up his sleeve to check his watch. ‘It’s gone three o’clock.’

‘Really? Already? You know what students are like.’ She tries to laugh.

‘Students? No, you can’t hide behind that anymore. Have you got a job lined up?’

‘Yes. Two actually,’ she says proudly.

‘Good for you. And where are you going after you move out of this place?’

‘Home. To my parents’.’

He nods at her. ‘Sensible thing to do. Right, I’ll do that upstairs tap first then have a look at the bedroom door.’ He puffs, then stamps his way up.

Yvonne busies herself cleaning the kitchen, sorting the crockery she brought from home from the old chipped plates that were already in the cupboards. It’s sad the way everything now has to be wrapped in newspaper and dragged back to her parents’ till she can find a house share cheap enough to rent again.