She had a shower, dried off and slowly rubbed cream into her skin, simply to give herself something to do. Then she rummaged around in one of the boxes marked BOOKS. She had just got into bed with a book of poetry—the one with that incredible Stephen Crane poem—when the music upstairs fell silent. Seconds later, a door slammed.

‘You won’t do that again,’ an angry male voice shouted and Norah sat up, book in hand.

A female voice, presumably Theresa’s, said something she couldn’t make out. Then another door was slammed. Norah sat in bed, her ears pricked.

A clatter, the man’s voice, incomprehensible this time, followed by a shrill cry, short and clipped. In seconds, Norah—who had only slipped on a sweatshirt before getting into bed—was back in her jeans and trainers. She grabbed her key and dashed upstairs. Outside Theresa’s door, a shrivelled pot plant was dying a slow death. Norah rang the bell saying Winkler and the voices in the flat fell silent. She could almost feel the hesitation on the other side of the door and rang again.

‘It’s Norah,’ she called. ‘Your neighbour.’

No reply.

‘Everything okay in there?’

Silence.

Norah was about to leave when the door opened a crack. A pale face, brown eyes, recalcitrant curls tied in an untidy bun. Norah had a good look at Theresa. She looked all right.

‘Norah,’ she said awkwardly, opening the door all the way to reveal a young man dressed in black, lurking at the end of the passage.

‘Sorry about the noise,’ she said. And then, jerking her head towards the man, ‘Rico was just going.’

He stood there without moving, poised somewhere between humiliation, aggression and indifference. Eventually a jolt went through his body and he turned and vanished into a room, reappearing with an army parka over his arm and a black rucksack over one shoulder. He pulled on the jacket, bending to whisper something into Theresa’s ear. Then he was at the door. Norah let him pass without looking at him. She waited until she heard his footsteps reach the ground floor and the front door open and then close again. She leant over the banisters, looking, listening.

‘He’s gone,’ she said and it was only now that she felt the rush of adrenaline.

‘Thank God,’ said Theresa. ‘Want to come in a moment?’

Norah thought of the emptiness waiting for her at home.

‘Love to,’ she said and followed Theresa down the bare passage into the living room.

‘Wine?’ Theresa asked, vanishing into the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

Norah looked about her. Unlike her living room, this one was crammed full of stuff. Cushions and blankets were piled up on a chocolate-brown sofa and on the wall above it hung a peculiar composition involving a photo collage, a pair of dainty antlers and a calligraphic print. Norah had to peer at it to decipher the curly letters. Reality is just an illusion.

A tattered chequered rug, pot plants, a small bookcase—and next to the bookcase, a record player standing on an old-fashioned cupboard. In one corner of the room was an empty birdcage, its little door wide open. Flea market finds, Norah thought, stepping closer—and bit back a shriek of delight when she saw the cat she’d met on the stairs, lying asleep on the rug, half under the sofa. Norah could hear Theresa moving about in the kitchen.