‘That’s better.’ Her mum sighed. ‘I’m sorry, too.’

She straightened up, nodding her head in my direction. ‘Leanne. Thanks for lending the books. And forget what I said about her stealing stuff. That was… something different.’

‘Of course.’

As they walked away, I gave myself a mental slap. I’d made a thousand judgements about this woman, badly drawn tattoos scrawled across her arms and legs. A face with every soft angle chipped away. Eyes sharp and fierce. I did my best to ditch every ill-conceived one of them.

6

The next day, Saturday, my new bed arrived. Because I was still new to all this doing-what-I-want Dream Life, I had drawn up a carefully planned schedule for the day:

1. Get up when I want
2. Read as much as I want
3. Eat what I want, when I want
4. Swap disgusting old bed for lovely new bed
5. Do some more of what I want
6. Go to sleep in lovely new bed

This schedule was rudely interrupted before it even got started when I was woken up by more banging on my door. I stuck one hand out of the duvet and checked the time on my phone. Seven a.m.! On a Saturday! I would have buried my head under the covers and waited for whoever it was to go away, but then they started knocking on the living-room window.

Peering out with sleep-addled eyes, I saw to my dismay that I hadn’t closed the curtains properly, and there was a man now gesturing at me through the gap.

Thankfully, I was at least wearing a T-shirt and pyjama shorts. I waved in acknowledgement, and reluctantly heaved myself up. By the time I’d shuffled the five steps into the corridor, undone the lock and opened the front door, the man – and his van – were disappearing over the crest of Hatherstone Lane. And there, propped up along the wall of my house where anyone could help themselves as they walked past, were the huge boxes containing the pieces of my oak bed frame and extra-thick new mattress.

I rubbed my face a few times and went to put the kettle on.

‘No. I have a text and an email to confirm that delivery would be between twelve and two.’

I took another angry bite of bagel, while the person on the end of the phone waffled on about a blip in the system.

‘I’m not denying the blip; I’m asking you what you’re going to do about it. I paid extra for a specific delivery slot that didn’t happen, and more importantly I now have a double bed frame and mattress dumped on the pavement, while the old bed I paid for your company to take away is still upstairs, in my bedroom.’

‘Well, you should have asked them to take the old bed away,’ she droned back, as if – duh! ‘We had a blip on the system so they weren’t informed about that.’