The first thing that struck me about London was how little space there seemed to be. In New Zealand, where I grew up, people tend to build outwards when constructing their homes, but in your capital city, everything felt to me as if it had been shoved one on top of the other. There were so many people, too, and so much bloody traffic. I wasn’t so naive that I expected London to be quiet, but I still found the whole place a bit much, and that feeling never really left me, I suppose. I was in the country for over a year in the end, but it still felt alien to me by the time I left. I was like the odd piece of a jigsaw puzzle that has somehow ended up in the wrong box, so as much as I tried to fit myself in, there were always gaps around my edges.

I found a bed at a hostel on Euston Road and a job five minutes’ walk from there at a little place called Sunrise Café. The owner, Tracey, asked me two questions – could I make a decent cuppa, and could I start straight away? When the answer to both was a resounding ‘yes’, she gave me the job on the spot. I had all these grand ideas about exploring the city on my days off, but in the end, I spent most of those first few weeks either out with my friends from the hostel, or picking up extra shifts. I enjoyed having a purpose, you see, and I loved spending time with Tracey, too. She quickly became like a mother to me, even though she couldn’t have been more different to my own mum back home – she was twenty years younger than her for a start.

My mum was forty-five when she had me, which is the same age as I am now, and she and my dad had long before given up any hope of me coming along. They had done all the tests, been poked and prodded and all that, but nobody could find any medical reason why a baby was not forthcoming. When my mum did fall pregnant, my dad was so terrified that she would miscarry that he refused to let her work, which I’m sure drove her around the bloody bend. I know it would have me, but then I was never that much like my parents. Not at eighteen, anyway. They were content never to travel beyond the boundaries of New Zealand, whereas I always craved adventure, and wanted to see as much of the world as I could. My plan was to begin in England, then travel through Europe and perhaps even America. Now, however, when I look back and try to remember why I wanted to do it so much, all I can conclude is that I didn’t even know myself at that stage – not really. Now that I’m older (and maybe even a tiny bit wiser, although I am reluctant to roll out that ancient cliché), I know that I am somebody who prefers the security and comfort of home, and of things and people that I know and understand. Change scares me now, but when I was eighteen, it was what I wanted more than anything else.

I’ve gone off on a bloody tangent again, haven’t I? That is typical of me, I’m afraid. Let’s get back to the story.

So, it was while working at Sunrise Café that I met the two people who were destined to change my life forever. One was called Seth, and the other—