They stand around looking at the soil, while the driver unloads trays of organic vegetable seedlings and compost from the van. There is no question the soil needs improving: it has a dead, noxious look as though it has forsaken the organic world for something more bohemian. The brambles and dead nettles are infiltrated with all sorts of detritus, little shards of china and glass, fragments of bone, scraps of plastic like butterfly wings, bits of wire, a bag of cement which has set firm, and at least one used condom. The nettles and brambles have already been cut back in a grid, marked with lines of gardening string to guide the young offenders and addicts as they get to work, and the whole plot has been fenced. Fleur wonders if the junkies aren’t in some way window dressing; in the van is a small rotovator which could turn over this urban waste in half an hour.

Eventually three young people arrive, two boys and a girl. They are subdued and tattooed; their hair is shaved up the sides and they wear camouflage trousers. At home in her wardrobe, Fleur has a very expensive pair herself, tightly cut around the legs, the newest fashion statement. The large woman who brought the volunteers in a Hackney Social Services minibus says, ‘I could only find these free and then we ’ad trouble with the vehicle.’

‘Hello,’ says Kim brightly, ‘I’m Kim and this is my friend Fleur, and we’re from Urban Veggie.’

She shakes hands with the three young people and they seem mildly surprised. They are probably more used to people trying to keep some healthy distance between them. Fleur shakes their hands cautiously.

‘Oh, OK, what we supposed to do then?’

‘Well, we’re going to dig this bit up here and then condition the soil.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘That’s cool,’ says the girl, who seems to be stoned. She has a very large silver ring in one eyebrow.

‘Did anybody read you the instructions?’

‘Nuh. You got a drink?’

Kim is prepared.

‘Right, good idea, let’s all start with a refreshment and then we’ll get going.’

She hands out Lucozade and Ribena and wholewheat buns stuffed with greenery and the girl rolls three cigarettes which she passes around. Her skin is very pale, so that it seems to have become translucent. She doesn’t look to Fleur as though she is going to live long.

They work in a desultory fashion pecking at the soil like hens, and about as effectively, with the shiny new spades. After half an hour they have made one small trench – you have to dig trenches and backfill with the good organic compost – and then they sit down against a rusting car-body which has at some earlier time in history wound up here in the brambles. They seem to find comfort in the shadow of this industrial relic.

‘Where did you get them?’ Fleur asks Kim.