I pull at a bit of loose skin next to one of my fingernails and squeeze my finger so that the blood forms a little bead. I suck it until it stops bleeding. Then, I get up off the floor.

I enjoy the dizziness. I stagger to my bag, open it, and take out the last couple of pieces of black pudding from this morning. I eat it. Over the sink I spit out a few bits of oats and pepper. Then I take my wallet and my phone and go to the door. I close it behind me and feel a little bit of anxiety about locking up in an unfamiliar place, with an unfamiliar key and an unfamiliar lock. The lock clicks, and I push the door a few times and jiggle the handle to make sure it’s closed. Then, I unlock the door and open it again, just to make sure I can get back in later. I’m locking up and jiggling the handle for a second time when I hear a shuffling sound farther down the corridor. There’s a woman standing outside her studio, maybe ten doors down from mine, on the phone and with a bike helmet hanging from her arm. Very tall, very slim, with dark skin and her hair wrapped tightly in a headscarf. She is smiling at me.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I answer.

And then the woman says hello to the person on the other end of the phone, waves at me, and disappears into her studio.

A little while later, I’m looking at Facebook while waiting in the queue at the butcher’s. Someone’s posted about a new type of reduced-sugar peanut butter that has an ingredient in it that is dangerous for dogs, with a message reading, “Watch out dog owners!” Someone else is looking for recommendations for vegan protein to put in smoothies. And a guy I went to school with has posted something about proportional representation. I suppose proportional representation makes sense. I think I’ve thought about it before, but I get confused sometimes about what are my own thoughts and what are thoughts other people have had and then posted on social media. The graph the guy from my old school has posted shows how, with proportional representation, the Conservatives would be down 4 percent and Labour up 3, or something like that. The graph isn’t clear, though, and I’m already convinced anyway, so I keep scrolling.

“Miss?” the guy behind the counter says. His eyes hover somewhere around my collarbones.

“Sorry.” I put my phone in my pocket. I smile.

The man watches, hand on hip; he seems impatient. Then he says, “What can I do you for?” The reviews online had said that this butcher was especially friendly; the shop had been passed down from generation to generation. So I’m taken aback by the roughness of the man’s voice and his unsmiling face.