“Keep it down then,” said George, after allowing Terry’s submission to register fully, to imprint itself upon him. He continued to stand close to the cowed man. “Or next time we will be calling the police.”

Eyes still lowered, Terry said nothing as George stepped backwards onto the pavement. He said nothing as George turned towards Veronica and took her hand. On the stairs behind him there was a creaking, and Veronica saw Simone appear. Eyes almost as blurry as Terry’s, she held one hand against the wall to balance herself. “Everything alright, Tel?” she asked, slurring considerably. But still he said nothing.

Until, as George and Veronica were navigating around the railing onto their own step, suddenly he leaned out of his doorway, and like a beaten animal made one last, defiant cry. “I’ll have you begging! I’ll have you on your knees and broken! Fucking toff wanker!”

And then he slammed the door, and George laughed, and Veronica felt her stomach contract with terror.

Simone

Even from the bedroom, the stench of alcohol is stale and sticky. Next to her, Terry lays naked, one skinny arm draped over the side of the mattress as if pointing down to oblivion. There is a nightstand next to their bed, and on it is an empty plastic packet smeared very slightly with the remnants of white powder, like stratus clouds. Simone has been staring at that packet for a good few minutes, recalling her GCSE Geography trip to the sand dunes in Studland Bay. They were taught there about longshore drift, and spits, and different types of cloud: cumulonimbus, cumulus, stratus… The powder is definitely stratus. She got an A* for that project.

Exhaustion comes in waves, shifting the sands, lapping her eyelids open and shut, and Simone finds herself jolting awake at least three times before she manages to pull herself up to sitting. She doesn’t know what time their friends finally left that morning, but it feels as though she can’t have been asleep for more than a few hours. Luckily, she set her alarm. It is only her second day at the gym and she wants to make a good impression, but it was necessary for Terry to blow off steam. He’d needed it. For weeks now, she has seen the street creeping like poison under his skin. Not that he’s actually envious. He genuinely finds four-pound kale juices, and jobs that keep people locked away in offices either side of daylight, a stupid undertaking. But if he ever did want those ‘ridiculous’ things, or that ‘mindless’ corporate job, like his father, he wouldn’t know where to begin. And that’s the crux of it, the winning blow, the thing the rugby neighbour was able to knock Terry down with without even touching him: Terry has no choice, no power, not really, and the fact of this taunts him on this street, with every perfect piece of paving. Simone does not, however, suggest that they leave the flat in Primrose Hill. She doesn’t consider it for even a minute.