‘She doesn’t speak enough,’ Saloni guesses.

  Gospel laughs. ‘You don’t get sent here for not speaking enough.’

  ‘Well she barely says anything and I know she can hear me. Hello in there,’ she says, reaching out to knock on my head. I snap my teeth at her and she laughs.

  ‘Girls!’ Amelia, our yoga instructor, calls mid-demonstration from the top. We’re in the back row, as usual. We wait until she’s caught in another yoga move before talking again.

  ‘Alice’s not a talker, but maybe a stalker,’ Gospel teases me, and we smile, because he’s noticed how I watch people, silently. Observing all the time, figuring everyone out. Even now, as they continue thinking of all the things that could be wrong with me, I’m distracted.

  ‘Stop talking down the back, please, and focus. Thank you.’

  There’s a man sitting on a nearby bench. He’s half-hidden by a tree but autumn is asserting its power on the trees and they’re less dense. I can see his colours more clearly than I see him. He glows. He’s facing the playground.

  ‘She seems normal,’ Gospel says, ‘or at least so far. But all of us seem normal.’

  ‘There’s nothing normal about you,’ Saloni bites back.

  ‘It’s still early on for everyone to reveal their true colours,’ he says. I look at him, surprised by how close he actually is.

  ‘What?’ he asks innocently. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Saloni, Gospel, Alice, pay attention, please.’

  The man on the bench near the playground has a bicycle beside him. His helmet is on his lap. There’s a sandwich sitting on opened tinfoil on the bench beside him. But something’s not right. There’s a swirl of red over his crotch, I recognise the colour of longing from Hugh when he was with Poh, but I don’t like this. It’s the wrong colour, on the wrong body part, in the wrong place. Black swirls slowly above his head like a Charlie Brown scribbled storm cloud of deviance and pure evil. I’ve never seen black before.

  I stand up.

  ‘Hey, Alice, what are you doing?’ Gospel asks.

  I start walking towards the man on the bench. I need to make sure I’m right about what I’m seeing.

  ‘Alice! Come back please!’ Rachel calls.

  I walk faster.

  There’s a toddler wobbling along the soft floor of the playground, the padded nappy the largest part of her. The man on the bench watches the toddler. She’s surrounded by pinks and golds, beautiful, pure, innocent, happy colours. She’s singing to herself as she picks up a leaf, throws it, picks it up again. She puts it on the swing. She pushes the swing. She takes it off again. She throws it on the ground. She wobbles away, forgetting about the leaf. She pauses. Then remembers, turns and returns to the leaf.

  He watches her. The helmet on his lap. The red, harsh, harsh dirty red circling his crotch. The black is pure black, it flickers, I can almost hear it. Like an untuned radio, searching for frequency. Neither here nor there, just stuck in this black obscure out of bounds place. Dirty filthy man.

  ‘Like little babies, do you?’

  He looks up at me in surprise.

  I lift his cycling helmet from his lap, see his hardness beneath and I fling the helmet at his head. The hard side connects and it makes a cracking sound. He falls to the side as I swing back again.

  ‘Alice!’ Amelia is beside me now, panting from her sprint over. Everyone has followed her. ‘I said stay there!’ she says to them, panicking.

  They ignore her and follow anyway.

  ‘You disgusting scum!’ I shout at him.

  The whole class cheers me on.

  The mother picks up the toddler and moves away from the scene.

  With an audience, I snap out of my rage and stop myself from swinging the helmet at his head again. Instead, I throw it down at his crotch, which has lost its overexcited red swirl.

  ‘Gosh, Alice,’ Saloni says. ‘You are one of us.’

  I’ve prepared for the possibility of bumping into Saloni, despite the hour and the empty offices. I have a story lined up, I’ve rehearsed a look of surprise that I didn’t put two and two together, that this is her family business. But it all falls apart when it comes to it. Not that it matters. I don’t need to drag out my alibis and explanations because she doesn’t recognise me. She barely looks at me, our eyes never meet.

  ‘I’ll just be a minute,’ she says politely, opening her gym bag. ‘I’ve got to get dressed. A whore’s bath,’ she says with a wink. ‘The shower in my office is broken again.’

  I look at her, waiting for her to see me, wanting her to see me, to remember me. To rescue me? She senses my oddness, looks up at me, directly in the eyes, and still nothing. I shuffle backwards, out of the toilets, with my cart.

  ‘You don’t have to leave, I won’t be long,’ she says, pulling her sweaty vest over her head, down to just her sports bra.

  I realise I’m staring. Her working out is paying off, her abs are toned, her arms and shoulders are muscular. She is more beautiful than ever.

  ‘Work away,’ she says, chirpy but firm now, running the water and cleaning under her arms.

  Heart pounding, I move away from the sinks and into a toilet cubicle while I try to figure out what to say. But a silence falls between us as she washes and sprays and applies creams and make-up to make herself appear refreshed and dewy. Too many minutes go by and I can’t say anything, can’t even think of anything.

  ‘Have a good day,’ she says, gathering her stuff. She’s dressed in tight grey pants and a cashmere grey jumper, incredibly high heels, looking expensive and sophisticated, her hair phenomenally thick, rich and shiny.

  ‘You too,’ I say to the door as it closes.

  I would have known her face in any situation. I wouldn’t have needed her family business to give her away, for a hint, or a reminder. I shared a room with her every night and day for almost a year, she was an important part of my life. I listened to every daydream and fantasy she ever had, and they were plentiful and fanciful. I look in the mirror at myself. Have I changed so much?

  The door to Naomi’s apartment opens as I put the key in my lock.

  ‘I have a client in here now, if you’d like to observe.’

  ‘No thanks,’ I say, going inside and locking the door, wondering why it is that I see every part of everyone and most of them never see me at all.

  I’m stirring my noodles in a pot on the electric ring, day dreaming, when like a bolt from the blue, I feel anxious. My stomach does a nervous dance and my chest pounds. Hardwired from my Stone Age ancestors, I examine my surroundings to see what has caused my instincts to be activated. Apart from the murmuring coming from Naomi’s flat next door, everything appears to be normal, still and quiet. I try to shake it off, take some deep breaths and return to my noodles. As I drain them off in the sink, I continue to feel unsettled, nervous, when only minutes ago I felt safe and completely at peace. I abandon the noodles to look around again. The thing I keep tuning into is the murmuring from the flat next door, which is really not unusual. Naomi usually has about three clients a day, spread out hours apart and, while I can’t hear exact conversations, I always know when she has company. I press my ear to the connecting wall. She’s talking in a calm soothing voice, there’s no shouting or any obvious cause to worry, but I feel a terrible sense of dread. Without really thinking through what I’m doing, emotions before reasons, I follow my gut.

  I knock on Naomi’s door. She takes a moment to answer it but as soon as she opens the door the disquiet I’m feeling intensifies. It floods out of her flat and almost knocks me over.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ I ask, trying to see over her shoulder.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, turning around to view what I’m so desperate to see. She takes a few steps back and opens the door wider.

  A man, an ordinary looking man, sits in her mother’s armchair untying his shoelaces in preparation for his treatment. He’s surrounded by the blackest of black colour that I’ve ever seen. So dark and heavy, I felt it emanating through the wall. The floor is covered in what looks like an oil slick. Never have I seen such a scene since the blue days of my mother in her bedroom when she was so desperately sad. Her true sadness felt like it would rather hide, this black feels like it’s hunting.

  My body starts to tremble.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I say loudly to Naomi, so that he can hear me. ‘But there’s a family emergency and you have to leave.’

  She nods, no doubt hearing my fearful tone. ‘Okay. I’m sorry Larry, we’ll have to reschedule this for another day.’

  He pauses untying his shoelace and looks up at her and then me. Goosebumps fill every inch of my body. There’s an unsettled awkward moment. I look at the oil slick all over Naomi’s carpet. It, too, has paused. The door to the flat opposite opens and our neighbour, Ruven, appears. We all say hello to each other, the spirit of camaraderie breaking the thick atmosphere, as he locks his door. I ask Ruven a few more questions than usual to make him linger longer.

  ‘Okay,’ Larry says, tying his shoelaces. He’s attempting polite but I can hear the edge in his tone. He’s been slighted. His dastardly plans have been scuppered and he doesn’t like it one bit. Ruven heads off, and I back away as Larry exits the apartment. I watch him pull his oil slick down the corridor behind him. He takes the stairs.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Naomi asks me. ‘Can I help you?’

  Ignoring her, I walk straight into her home and out on to the balcony. I watch the area by the main door, to make sure he leaves the building.

  ‘How do you advertise what you do?’ I ask.

  ‘I have a Facebook page,’ Naomi says.

  ‘Don’t,’ I say.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, a little intrigued and a lot startled.

  After a moment, Ruven appears. I’m holding my breath, Larry, if that’s his real name, should be right behind him. A moment later he appears and I breathe a sigh of relief. He looks around as if he’s casing the joint, the oil spill spreads out in the car park, then he looks up in our direction. I quickly step back inside.

  It’s rare to find pure evil, but you have to recognise when it finds you.

  I transform my London balcony into a garden of Eden. It is sublime, if I do say so myself, and most of my neighbours have commented on it, apart from Dimitri, who complains of the bees it attracts, and of course, the wind chimes. I’ve installed a rainwater harvesting system by running a pipe from the gutter to feed the fallen rain into a barrel. From there I can simply remove the rainwater myself or, by using the pump system and a battery-operated timer, I can set it to water the plants at whatever time I want, for however long I want. I only use it when absolutely necessary, because by now I have learned that, even though my tomatoes need water, they don’t always need the same amount at a specific time. Like people, I suppose, they have individual needs. I quite like the relationship I have when watering them; probably how a mother feels when nursing a baby. A moment of nurturing, a shared moment.

  Who’d have thought I’d become the crazy woman who talks to her plants – but I have. I grow herbs: thyme, lavender, parsley, sage, rosemary and mint. I have bee- and butterfly-friendly wild flowers. It’s such a busy balcony I barely have room to sit out on it, but I admire the view from inside. And oh the colours – and I don’t mean from the petals themselves, but the energies that throb from the plants and flowers, the butterflies and bees when they’re feeding each other. The giving and receiving is phenomenal, it’s probably as close to an LSD trip as I’ll ever have. It’s like sound waves, a radio blaring on a hot day, the bounce of the bass speakers, the heat haze, the mirage on a road. It’s like an optical illusion, an absolute phenomenon where the light appears to bend, changing all the rules of this light show I have the privilege of having a front-row seat to. Yes, at times like these, I can even call it a gift.

  ‘You have to visit me,’ I say to Lily.

  ‘Just send me photographs.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘A balcony is a balcony,’ she snaps.

  ‘Well, it’s a beautiful balcony,’ I say, determined not to let her negativity chip away at me. ‘Why don’t you visit? I can show you where I live. Have a few days in London. When’s the last time you were here?’

  ‘I don’t know. With your dad.’ I count the seconds until she adds, ‘The bastard.’

  ‘The block has a lift, you can sleep in my room.’

  ‘And where will you sleep?’

  ‘On the couch. I don’t care.’

  ‘And how will I get on the plane?’

  ‘Ollie can bring you to the airport. They’ll have someone to assist you all the way through. People in wheelchairs fly all the time you know.’

  She snorts, and I can tell this is a wasted conversation and she’ll never come to visit.

  ‘How’s Ollie?’

  ‘Fine,’ she says, shutting it down completely, blowing out smoke.

  ‘Is he there?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you smoking?’

  ‘What of it?’

  We leave a silence.

  ‘What if I fly home and bring you here myself?’

  There’s a scuffling sound, the phone receiver is rubbed against something and Ollie’s voice comes on the other end.

  ‘You’re not welcome here, you robbing bitch. You set one foot in this house and I’ll finish what I started before you left.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to your sister like that, you clown,’ Lily says in the background. ‘Give me that back.’

  I don’t believe he’d do it but hearing these words come from his mouth makes me feel ill.

  ‘Put her back on,’ I say to him.

  ‘Well,’ she says, back again.

  ‘Is everything okay there?’

  She laughs. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Lily, what’s happening, is he caring for you?’

  The door bangs.

  ‘He’s not here much,’ she says, able to speak more freely now. ‘He didn’t get the allowance that you were getting. They wouldn’t give it to him – I don’t know why, don’t ask me. He was on to Hugh about it.’

  ‘Hugh never said,’ I say, more to myself.

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he. That’s Hugh.’

  ‘So because he doesn’t get the allowance, he doesn’t help you?’

  ‘He does a bit.’

  ‘I’ll come home this weekend.’

  I visit Lily for the weekend. It’s been longer than it should have been. I’m not afraid of Ollie, he’s my brother, my own flesh and blood, he wouldn’t hurt me. Would he? Whenever I ask myself that, I remember the feel of his hand wrapped around my neck, how his fingers pressed on my windpipe, crushing it. It was only for a few seconds, but it made its mark on my skin and my mind.

  I walk from the bus stop to the house feeling like a child on the way home from school, butterflies in my stomach with anticipation, tightness in my chest with anxiety. I used to live like this every day. My body was always rigid and stressed, and I didn’t even know it until I left.

  Trembling a little on the inside, I ready myself for attack, the definite emotional and the uncertain physical. The curtains are drawn, the door is unlocked. I step inside and brace myself. The place looks as though it’s been ransacked, but it’s the smoke that hits me hard. Stale and fresh cigarette smoke lingers in the air. Dirty dishes and glasses fill the sink. No pots or pans, nobody has been cooking. Lily can’t reach the sink, and he hasn’t been doing it. The bin is overflowing with takeaway bags and boxes, and it stinks. I go into default mode: I pull the bag out of the bin, throw it in the wheelie-bin outside and immediately start cleaning. My row of plants on the windowsill are dead. I take them outside and place them on the ground, dead in their pots. It makes me angry. The grass still looks good; at least it’s being cut.

  I clean, I tidy, I scrub. I load the dishwasher and clean the oven, which is so thick with grease it makes my stomach heave. Nobody comes downstairs. Assuming I’m alone in the house, I go into Lily’s bedroom not knowing what to expect. It’s not as bad as downstairs, she has at least been able to control her own patch. She’s asleep in bed. I quietly move around, picking up dirty clothes for the wash. Then gather the cups and mugs beside her bed.

  When I see my aloe vera plant next to her bed, thriving, I cry quietly.

  I am tired of feeling like a shadow.

  I quit the cleaning job. London has made me feel like I’m here but apart from everyone. Surrounded by people but disconnected, as though I’m watching everyone else living and they’re in the light and I’m not. Working by night, sleeping by day, not really living. This is what I wanted for so long when I was at home with Lily: to just get by and be left alone, it is my default, but I didn’t move here to continue bad habits. Not when the people who once knew me can no longer see me.

  I get a job at a call centre, Calling Card. With better hours, from nine to five, it pays more in this ridiculously expensive city, and I can wear jeans and a blue T-shirt with the company logo. My focus is on outbound calls. Our minimum calls per hour is ten but I’m making double that, and not for good reasons. I can’t seem to keep anyone on the line to listen. While the guy to my left and the girl to my right trot out the sales spiel we’ve learned, everyone I get is too busy, isn’t interested, wants to be called back later but then doesn’t take the call later.

  I’m in close proximity to a lot of people, which is difficult, but we’re separated by partitions to give a feeling of privacy. There are two hundred of us in the room, ten rectangular tables of twenty, ten on each side, but they’ve been clever about how they’ve crammed two hundred people into one room, creating an impression of space when there isn’t. It’s a trick I need to learn, one of the great tips a city like London can teach me, but for once it’s not the people that are the problem. It’s the machines. The room is hot. I can’t remove my T-shirt, I’ve no more layers to lose. I feel like there’s no air, like I can’t breathe. My cheeks are on fire.