I’m not the only one who appreciates sameness. My black guppy does, too. The guppy was a Christmas present from my neighbour Maggie, who lives upstairs in a flat just like ours. Only her flat is colourful and light, and she has hundreds of darting multicoloured fish in a big long tank, which she watches just like a television. My guppy is currently swimming his all-too-familiar box dance and seems pretty happy that his surroundings are unchanged. I haven’t named him yet. I can’t settle on the right word to describe him. He might be a she, of course, but something about my guppy reminds me of my dad, so I’ve decided it’s a boy. I think it’s the way he stops and looks at me, like he’s waiting for an answer. He moves with the same purpose as Dad, and seems content swimming in his small square of glass, just like Dad when he’s cooking in our tiny kitchen.

I drop a pinch of fish flakes into the tank and watch as he nips towards the surface, swallowing pieces in one gulp. I wonder what Mum will make of my guppy. There’s been talk of getting a dog when we move into our new home. But I overheard Dad telling my aunty Annie that he thought that if Mum had a dog to walk, she’d have a reason to leave the house every day and I realised, then, that the dog wouldn’t be mine. Not like my guppy.

I’d never had much to do with fish until I met Maggie and became her official fish-sitter whenever she went away. Now I love them. Maggie has taught me to notice the differences in their scales and fins. She’s shown me how they hide behind rocks and grasses, and how to get to know the personality of each fish, even when they all seem, at first, to be exactly the same. And she’s explained how, if you watch them long enough, they hypnotise you, drag you from your frustrated thoughts and force you to relax. That’s why she gave me the guppy. She thought it might help. And it does. Some days I can lose myself just watching him, but today I need to talk.

I actually have a key to Maggie’s, but I never use it unless she’s away and I’m feeding the fish. So, today I knock.

‘Clem!’ The door flings open and Maggie stands there in a halo of electric-blue material. Her dresses are always bright, but this one is luminous. Her feet are bare and her toenails are painted bright orange, like shiny scales. Everything about Maggie is theatrical and colourful. She’s like a human version of a goldfish: busy, inquisitive and surprising.

‘We were just talking about you,’ she says with a huge smile.

‘We?’