the right arm. Keep the left arm raised. Back flat against the floor. Flat as you can. Don’t forget to breathe.’
I’ll get my break, one day. Slowly, slowly, I breathe in. Slowly, slowly, I exhale. Until that day I must look after my body, and never give up.
I watch you walk past, faster than usual because of the sudden heavy rain, which has really caught you out. You are not even wearing a raincoat. Your normally bouffant hair is wet and flat. Why don’t you wear a hat, just in case? Are you too cool for that, Faye?
After you have gone, the cold of my flat begins to sink into my bones and I find myself shivering. I have been living here for two years, surrounded by fingers of mould, which creep up the tile grouting and form a black mist on the walls. The central heating doesn’t work. I have tried contacting the landlord, but he never replies. Sometimes I use a fan heater, but it doesn’t really help. It just circulates overheated air making me feel so claustrophobic that after about twenty minutes I turn it off. So most of the time in winter I walk around my flat wrapped in a scratchy old blanket. Mouse says I look like a tramp in it, so I try not to wear it when he is around. Not that he comes here very often. His flat is so much more comfortable than mine; I usually visit him there.
I sit, feeling empty inside. Coping with each day has, for many years, been a struggle. A plethora of temporary jobs. No focus. But it’s become easier in the last six months. Since I started to follow you. Since I started spending time with Mouse. It’s raining today, so I cannot follow you. When it rains I need to check on Mouse.
Mouse lives in the flat directly above mine. I pad up the communal staircase.
‘It’s Erica,’ I shout through his letter box.
Slowly, slowly, the door opens. I step straight into his living room. He stands in front of me, agitated.
‘Wotcha.’
‘Wotcha, Erica,’ he replies.
I high-five him. He high-fives me back. A ritual between us, the result of watching too many American films together. I cast my eye around his flat and feel a tremor of envy. His father bought it for him, and helped him decorate it. It has central heating that works, and is beautifully appointed. IKEA furniture. Copious kitchen equipment. But then Mouse is vulnerable and he really needs his father’s help. I must not resent the good fortune of a friend.
He walks into the sitting area of his living room. I follow him. He stalks up and down in front of the window, wringing his hands and glowering at the rain. I walk over to him and put my hand on his arm.
‘The rain isn’t going to hurt you.’ I pause and look into his anxious face.
Grey-brown eyes stiffen. ‘It wants to.’
‘It can’t, remember? As long as you stay inside.’
His eyes soften. He frowns. He sighs and flops down into the middle of the sofa. I sink into the easy chair opposite him.
Mouse. Thirty years old. Nicknamed Mouse because of his timid personality and grey-brown hair.
‘What’s up?’ he asks.
‘Been busy.’
‘Because of Faye?’
‘Yep.’
He leans across and takes my hands in his, face pressed towards mine. ‘But you’re here today.’
I squeeze his hands. Mouse has difficulty reading emotions and suffers from phobias. I have confidence issues because of my upbringing. Perhaps one day I will be able to overcome them. But Mouse won’t recover from his issues. He just has to learn to live in this world despite them. That’s why Mouse’s father has done so much to support him. Mouse’s father is my hero. I wish I had a father like that. But I do not have a father. My mother never knew who my father was.
We sit in silence for a while.
‘I’ve bought something at the charity shop,’ Mouse eventually announces as he pads across the room. ‘I’ll show you.’
Rain forgotten now that I’m here, he opens his living room cupboard and pulls out a large cardboard box. He places it in the middle of the sitting area, lifts out a silver and bronze chess set, the pieces finely etched, and puts it on the floor. He stands up, shoulders back in pride.
‘That looks fantastic,’ I tell him.
He smiles at me. A broad, effervescent smile. When he smiles, despite his rough-hewn features, Mouse is good-looking.
‘Do you want to play chess with me?’
‘You’ll have to teach me.’
‘That’s fine. I bought it for both of us so that we could play together.’
My heart lurches. What would I do if I didn’t have Mouse?
I close my eyes and feel again my mother’s heat as I lay clamped against her, waiting for her to wake up. I feel her breath steady and even, not the agonising rasping I heard when I first called the ambulance. Eleven years old. A man stepping towards me, to prise me away. A man who smells of nicotine and mint. The social worker in charge of my case. I shudder inside and push the memory away. My mind is back. Back in Mouse’s comfortable flat.
‘Come on, Erica, I’ll teach you how to play chess,’ he says, flicking his grey-brown locks.
Home from the gym. In my bedroom, trying to rescue my hair. I have managed to wash it. But Georgia has woken from her morning nap, so drying it will be a problem.
‘I’m not Georgia any more,’ she tells me. ‘I’m a kangaroo.’
She bends down, face plastered in a mischievous grin. ‘I need to do my hopping practice.’ She begins to hop around our bedroom. Even though she is only three years old, she is heavy enough to make the floorboards vibrate. I shouldn’t have let her sleep for so long. Now she is full of energy. She picks up my Chanel perfume.
‘Kangaroos like perfume,’ she announces, spraying it into the air around her.
I snatch it away and put it in a drawer. ‘They don’t like perfume. They like grass.’
‘Come on then, Mummy, let’s go outside and get some.’
‘I can’t go outside, I need to dry my hair.’
‘Well I’ll go then,’ she says, jumping towards the door.
I lean across and lock it. ‘No. No. You can’t go alone. I’ll come outside with you later.’
‘OK,
