She tries grinning, and the pain around her eyes and ears is intense.

She tries smiling a smaller, demure flash of lip, hint of tooth, and it seems like a girly simper.

She tries relaxing her face, and then thinking of something funny, but it’s hard to think of funny things right now.

She puts on a few videos she’s always liked from YouTube – kittens, a comical panda, stuff like that – and sort of does begin to smile a bit.

It’s hard and slow, but she’ll get there.

She’ll get there.

On Monday, she goes back to work.

Chapter 26

This is Harmony Meads, back in the Bermondsey estate agent, doing OK.

She’s going to be OK.

She’s not what she once was. It’s hard. Her body adjusts slowly to the loss of so many upgrades. Her smile hurts. Sometimes she cries at night. Sometimes she’s manic, can’t stop talking, her brain a fizzle-pop of ideas, sounds, sensations, all of which are very, very important and need to be said right now!

And though she hasn’t yet broken and called her mum, and though she’s now living in a crappy little room in Lambeth, the debt is OK.

If she’s careful.

She sits down and does a bit of maths. Not the scary maths, not the numbers that reveal the truth of what her life is, has been, will be. Just a bit of in–out, balancing the books. Taking back control.

Her minimum monthly repayments to the credit card companies are £263. If she pays that amount every month, on time, and doesn’t get any more overdrawn, she’ll have paid back everything by 2055. The total cost of her repayments on her £11,000 debt will, by that time, be around £119,928. If she can pay it back faster, she’ll pay less.

She scrolls through her phone. Dozens of upgrades are still listed as purchased, still being paid for. The termination fee is usually seventy-five per cent of the overall cost. She checks her bank balance, and doesn’t have the money to pay a termination fee, not after putting down a deposit on her bedsit. It’s not cheaper, but it is easier just to let the contracts tick on, until they run out, and simply not renew. One by one they’ll vanish from her phone. Upgrades for wobbly thighs, for calves that squelch in tight trousers. Upgrades for perfectly carved ankles, to prevent having a runny nose when it’s cold, or to erase moles from her body. Upgrades for feeling happy, upgrades to smooth out knobbly knees, or to stop her bum getting spotty and red from too long sat in the office chair. Movie stars don’t have spotty red bottoms.

Until they lapse, and even with a decent salary, she’s still spending two hundred pounds a month more than she can afford.

In the end, she sold her TV. She didn’t watch TV much anyway, and could stream most things on her laptop. That got her about £180. If she didn’t go to the pub with the office and was careful with her shop – she could squirrel another £30 or so back from her weekly expenditure. That gave her £210 in hand, enough to terminate a couple of the more expensive upgrades, claw back that monthly outgoing. It didn’t feel as good as spending it on something necessary or saving it for a rainy day, but she knew that spending it now would save money later.