I look up with a start to find Julie, all overcoated-up, clacking 35along the pavement to lean on the wall beside me. Julie, her frizzy hair framing her head like it’s a lightbulb. Never gets any longer, never gets any shorter, no matter how many months, even years, pass between our meets. Just gets curlier, like it’s resisting growing any more. It’s pretty clever, when you think about it.

‘What are you doing here?’ I hawk again rather than look her in the face.

‘You’ve been missing your appointments. You know that though, right? So surely you know that I do too?’

There’s nothing left in my throat to hawk so I kick at the ground instead.

‘Haven’t I been going long enough that we can finally drop all the talking? I’ve got nothing else to say…’

A bus accelerates past, into the silence between us.

‘You know the deal, girl. It’s a requirement. You can jog away all you like—’

‘I was on a story,’ I interrupt, looking up. Who jogs? I run, never jog. ‘A big one, massive, actually. Proper undercover-bust stuff, we’ve been working on it for weeks. It will even be in the newspapers too, soon enough.’

‘I’m sure it was,’ she says, smiling. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact you need to show up, on time, on schedule, and talk. Or sit in silence if they decide that does the job. But you have to check in, you know that. And it’s my job to make sure you do. It will always be my job to check in on you. I’m your sponsor for life, love. You couldn’t get rid of me even if you wanted to.’

‘Fine,’ I say as I straighten up. ‘Fine. I’ll go next week, OK? Wouldn’t miss it for the world. But it’s a bit much for social services to send you to chase me, isn’t it? All that banging on about no cash but you can pony halfway across the country to remind me to clock in?’

‘That’s the headline news at your network? The lack of funding for social services?’

She stares at me, those intense eyes that have always felt like 36they can see into my brain. I can never drop her stare no matter how hard I try.

‘Sorry,’ I say, trying to look at the frizz round her head instead. Of course it’s not news. No one gives a toss about social services. I only know because Dominic rants about it.

‘So how are you doing?’ Julie asks me again.

‘I said fine, didn’t I?’

‘You don’t look fine. You look skinny, knackered … haunted.’