“Hello.” Her tone is cheery and confident, her skin smooth and perfect, her smile alluring. Simone doesn’t answer. “Sorry, I’m your new neighbour,” the woman clarifies, laughing and withdrawing her body slightly. “We’re finally in. So sorry about all the building work, it must have been absolutely irritating. I hope it wasn’t too awful.” The woman has a plummy, boarding school, house-in-the-country voice.

“That’s alright,” says Simone. She speaks flatly, but in more clipped tones than she would normally employ. The fact that she has done this is immediately irritating to her and she winces internally. Terry never does that, never puts on a pretence. Why should she? She doesn’t care what this woman thinks of her. But there is an unfamiliar scrabbling inside her, an uncalled-for desire to make a good impression. Finding her key, she forces that feeling away and turns without further comment towards the door.

“Oh, they’re for you!” the woman declares, laughing again and thrusting the box forwards. “Just some chocs. A little thank you for your patience. But we’re in now.” She glances up at her house and inhales again. “I’m Veronica.” She puts the chocolates into Simone’s hands.

“That’s alright, you keep them,” says Simone.

“Don’t be silly. Please.”

Silly? Who does this woman think she is? Simone glances up at Veronica who is still smiling, sillily. She could put this condescending woman in her place in a second if she wanted to. She could wipe that smile right off her face. But, something she can’t quite discern holds her back. She finds herself noticing Veronica’s assured, easy poise. She finds herself admiring it. An image flashes through her mind and all at once she sees herself, or a different version of herself, in a different life, leaning with Veronica against the railing, both laughing with equal ease. Then on the other side of the door, Simone hears movement on the stairs.

Terry is waiting for her. He isn’t a large man. There was a time when he used to box, flyweight, and then there was a certain width to him, but too much coke has sucked the muscle away. Both of them are rakes these days, Dominic too. Only Jasmine is rounded with flesh. She is growing taller finally, but her legs still fold into dimpled layers. Simone hears her daughter cry out from upstairs.

“Hi, Tel,” she says breezily, smiling at him as she climbs a few steps of the stairwell to where he stands, and touching him gently on the arm. “Everything alright?”

“Where the fuck have you been?”

He isn’t a large man. But he has a way of dominating space.

“Shall we go in?”

Terry allows Simone to pass him and together they enter the flat where the quiet of the street dissolves into the blaring of the TV, and the bawls of their daughter, Jasmine, sat screaming in her high chair. Jasmine’s hair is matted together with something sticky and there are remnants of the cheesy puff crisps she loves dried onto her skin. Her nappy is full and smelling.