Within an hour, the thrush descends from a sooty sky, its keen sight fixing upon a housing estate where busy roads encircle cement blocks, and the air is a brown haze. Closing claws upon the railing of a gantry in a grubby block of flats, the bird sees the face of another careworn woman, who sits in silence behind a kitchen window.

2

Jess looks out of the kitchen window without taking any notice of the world. She searches inwardly to gather the resolve and strength required for the day ahead. With fingers reddened by cleaning agents, she habitually worries an old scar that cuts her top lip and extends to her nose.

Outside the flat, the hostile sounds that she has learned to background are unrelenting. A scooter revs. A door slams in a communal corridor. A dog barks incessantly as if driven mad. Above the ceiling of the flat, the thump of dance music pounds a tribal rhythm.

Jess drops her hands to her lap, where her fingers and their bitten-down nails, twist and entwine upon the glossy estate agent’s brochure spread across her thighs. The cover features an artist’s impression of a pristine cedar-panelled housing block. A dream destination of huge windows and balconies set in a grassy park where the graphics of conjured children frolic. ‘New Development. Family Homes.’

In contrast to the comforts the pamphlet promises, this kitchen’s interior can only reveal the evidence of a mother’s attempts to make a space contemporary and homely with cheap, bright pictures and feature walls. In two corners, an intrusion of black-spore fungus persists in discolouring her efforts to enliven the room. When her gaze returns to the brochure, an expression of longing that seems painful induces her to hold her disfigured lip between her teeth.

She eventually stirs from her absorption and glances at the doorway that opens onto the kitchen. ‘Izzy, love! We’ll be late. My first day!’ And to herself, ‘We need this.’

When the small figure of her daughter shuffles into the doorway, Jess tucks the brochure inside her bag.

Izzy enters the room with a slow, determined reluctance. Her auburn hair, brushed into tight bunches, is also tied with pink bows.

Jess finds her daughter’s pale and nervy expression too hard to look at. It is too similar for comfort to the very image of herself that she has been gazing at, on the inside of the kitchen window. And though her daughter’s dressed neatly, Jess’s eyes cannot refrain from dwelling upon the tired aspects of Izzy’s school uniform. A faded cardigan repaired with a different blue wool to the garment’s original fabric, complemented by school shoes, the toes worn grey, the remaining uppers polished to a dull shine.

Jess reaches onto the counter and rummages inside one of her daughter’s three bags. ‘These the right books?’

Izzy nods, unhappily.