Lorraine’s tone gave Shannon the temptation to drop the subject altogether. But she couldn’t.

‘Can’t you at least be happy that you save lives?’

‘Happiness doesn’t come into it either.’

Shannon had seen miserable people. There had not been one happy human in the whole of New London’s Outer City, including herself. But even so, she felt hurt by Lorraine’s refusal to even consider positive thought.

‘How can you think like that?’ she asked.

Lorraine paused, and took a sip of her cold tea. For a moment it was unclear whether she would respond at all, but eventually she did.

‘Shannon,’ she asked, ‘do you believe the world is a beautiful place?’

Shannon paused.

‘No,’ she answered, honestly.

‘People get to know me and assume I’m the same. The truth is, I do believe the world is beautiful. And I thank God every day for what we do have.’

Shannon looked at her, confused.

‘Yes,’ Lorraine continued, ‘I’m a believer. I’m not a shout-it-from-the-rooftops believer like Raj was, although I used to be. These days though, it’s difficult for me to talk about religious faith when I see the world’s ugliness more than anything else.’

‘But you just said—’

‘That the world is beautiful. And it is. But I don’t see that beauty the way I used to.’

Shannon looked around the attic, and imagined the remains of Great Britain beyond it. When she thought about it, Lorraine’s words were unsurprising.

‘I was a teaching assistant once,’ Lorraine said, ‘before my twenty years as a nurse. Worked with eleven-year-olds, mostly. Towards the end, I worked one-to-one with a boy called Joey Shetland. He had the kind of childhood that involved social workers. And the police, once in a while. He didn’t have the best start to life, and worst of all he knew that he hadn’t. Even as a child, he hated himself.’

Shannon nodded. She understood.

‘But there was an extra layer of self-loathing, backed up by his parents. His mum told him he’d grow up to be useless like his dad, and his dad told him he’d grow up to be evil like his mum. So obediently, he believed them.’

Lorraine paused, either for dramatic effect or to prepare herself for the rest of the story. Shannon suspected the latter.

‘I did some great things for Joey. And yes, I was happy about it. I was even proud. But halfway through Year Six he started talking about killing himself. Imagine it, Shannon, wanting death at the age of eleven.’

I know, right? I was at least fourteen.

‘It wasn’t truly death that he wanted. He just wanted the bad thoughts gone from his head. Long story short, I helped him deal with his issues. He reached the end of the year in one piece, and when he finished juniors his family moved away.’