‘How do you look the exact fucking same as when you were thirteen?’ Kylie said.

‘Bullshit.’

‘Nah, you’re right. Your skin is way better. Still got no tits or arse, though. How’ve you managed that?’

‘Who’s this?’ Lena nodded toward the dozing, snot-encrusted child.

‘Lacey. Fucking menace, she is. Nah, for real, though, she’s a great kid. Just going through the terrible twos and all that. So how come you’re here? Like, on holidays or back for good?’

‘For good, I guess. I mean, I came back down for uni, but—’

‘You were always smart as fuck. Hey, listen, I’ve gotta get this little monster home, but why don’t you come with us? I’ll get her settled and then we can catch up properly.’

‘Oh, I should really …’ She shrugged her backpack, pointlessly.

‘Someone waiting for you?’

‘Nah. Not really.’

‘So come on then.’ Kylie started walking and Lena followed. When they came to the automatic doors, she wheeled the trolley right out on to the street and kept going, chattering away about what Jo and Nash and the rest of the old school crew were up to. It was three minutes or so before Kylie stopped out the front of a shudderingly familiar block. Four separate six-storey redbrick buildings, each divided into thirty units with a shared balcony connecting them. The ground in between was concrete and determined weeds, VB cans and ciggie butts and faded chocolate wrappers. It was like a TV executive’s idea of how poor people lived.

Kylie scooped up her kid in one arm, grabbed shopping bags with both hands. Lena went to take some for her, but she was already marching up the path towards the middle building, the trolley left to fend for itself on the street.

‘You still with your mum, hey?’ Lena asked.

‘Fuck, no. I’ve got a place of my own one floor up.’

‘Cool. She’s still here then? Your mum?’

‘Yep. They’ll get her out of here in a body bag if they ever get her out at all.’

These were the flats Lena thought of when that tower in London caught fire a few years back. It was much taller than the building she was following Kylie to, but the shape and feel of it—the paper-thin interior walls, the concrete external stairs and landings—had made her think of the place she’d spent so many summer days as a kid.

Kylie climbed the three flights of stairs surprisingly quickly for a fat woman carrying a toddler and a week’s worth of groceries. Lena, half the size including her backpack, struggled to keep up, her lungs burning by the top of the first flight. By the second her knees were creaking, the left one threatening to give out as she reached Kylie’s floor.

‘Bit puffed, mate?’