No chewing.

The club was directly at the bottom of the hill which led to the flat. Ant was talking, I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I looked up the hill towards the flashing lights and crowds of people that were being herded backwards by firefighters. I could see flames and smoke. So much smoke that it was beginning to coat the back of my throat even as I stood at the bottom of the hill.

I spun around to hear the siren right behind me. An ambulance careered past me and swerved into the road and up the hill. It stopped next to the fire engine and crowds of people directly outside the building. Our building. Ant’s arm was around me as he escorted me up the hill. I was presented before a fireman who took me aside and starting saying things to me which didn’t make sense. ‘Serious accident… explosion… tried everything we could…’ There was a lady, perhaps a paramedic. She offered me a cup of water and tried to put a blanket around me. I tried to walk away, my mission was to get to the flat. Why was everyone getting in my way? I needed to find Eve, that was all. But I was grabbed by the arm and pulled back just as a stretcher was carried from the smoking building. A black material covered a body and I had a sudden urge to retch. I crouched down – or was I on my knees? I wasn’t sure. There was a dull pain in my legs and I saw there was blood on my hands as I struggled to get back to my feet. But even as the two firefighters carried a body right past me, I still thought to myself, it was all going to be okay.

15

ANNIE

The thing about my son is that I love the bones of him. It’s an instinct I thought I wouldn’t ever experience and so when he came into my life, all I wanted to do was keep him all to myself because of the way we were deserted and let down. I tried so hard to make him feel loved with all the things I did, cooking and cleaning for him. So when someone else came and stole him away, and I didn’t hear from him, it made me feel abnormal; like everything had been tipped upside down. I don’t like disorder. I like to know what’s what.

One thing I have learned is that you have to seize every moment that is drifting past you in this ever-changing life. There’s no point waiting. It will only pass you by and then you’ve lost out.

Everything happens for a reason, there’s no denying it. Take Ben, for instance. He came to me at a time when I thought nothing else good could happen in my life.

I know when someone is telling bare-faced lies, there’s something about their demeanour, it’s a slight shift in their body as they stand or a stutter in their speech, it’s a twitch of the eyes to the left; searching for the truth that was never there. I’ve seen it all. Everything has to come to an end and her time is well and truly up. Those lies, all that covering up and pretending she is someone she isn’t? I don’t need to worry about it any more. Soon it will be as it was. Just me and my son.