‘It’s just the dark hair,’ I say, pulling at the strands on my neck. ‘Occupational hazard when your face looks like paper to start with. Can I go now? Or do we need to talk about the haircut as well? All I said was to cut it shorter but she may as well have shaved it off.’

‘I’m not stopping you,’ she says. ‘But you’re on a short leash, OK?’

‘Always nice to see you,’ I mumble over my shoulder, beating a path to the main entrance. I mean it, even though it sounds like I don’t. And she knows it too.

Seven floors up, round two corners and I’m in, leaning against the closed door. I guess I’m lucky to get to live in one, but I’m never sure how I really feel about these flats. The doors are so solid, that along with their tiny windows, it’s almost impossible to break and enter unless you’re the size of a five-year-old. But it’s also almost impossible to get out quickly. Nothing holds those doors open, not even both hands and a foot. It takes a whole body.

I slouch against the door for my quick mental circuit. The kettle’s still plugged in under the only window, waterline where I last left it. The sofa watches and waits along the back wall. No cushions, just a tidy pile of pillows and blanket. Nothing on the table in front except a remote control, still lined up perfectly with the corner of the table opposite my small tub of a television. Yanking open the fridge, I collect up the usual: apple, unopened block of cheese, king-sized slab of chocolate from the neat stacks of identical items on the top shelf. As I walk the few steps to the sofa, I feel the trance sweep over me, soothing, like a chill breeze 37on a sticky day. I’ve done this so many times now that I could do it unconscious. It’s the only form of control I know.