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if anyone really wants to get hold of her they’ll keep trying.
    Okay, thinks Cher. Whatevvs. Sod her if that’s her attitude. She tucks the phone into her bra, in case, and jumps from the bed, finds her flip-flops and ties her hair up off her face with a scrunchie. She can’t shake off a feeling of melancholy about Nikki, though. I thought she was my friend, she thinks. I’d’ve at least thought she’d have said goodbye. Then she shrugs the sadness to the back of her mind and starts to clean her face. In Cher’s life, no one lasts for long. If you let it get to you, she tells herself, you’re done for, so let her go. If she doesn’t want to talk to you, then fuck her.
    She wonders about putting on more make-up and dismisses the thought. ‘We’re all girls together,’ she tells the cat, who blinks his jade eyes to show that he’s listening. ‘We don’t need slap.’
    She heads for the fridge. The supermarkets have become a lot more canny about tagging their branded goods, but the own-brand equivalents don’t seem to matter to them in the same way. Apart from sherry. Sherry, the old tramp’s standby, often has a big black bold alarm strip round its neck. But Cher has yet to develop a taste for the grown-up things: olives and sherry and vermouth and red wine. Her favourite drinks of all are neon blue, but they’re surprisingly hard to nick.
    In the fridge, along with the cheese slices and the ketchup, she has a bottle of Sainsbury’s own-brand Irish Cream, just a couple of inches taken off the top. She snatches it up, along with a bar of chocolate and a multi-pack of meat-flavoured Golden Wonder crisps, and heads down the stairs where her knock is greeted by silence. But she feels, as much as hears, that movement has stopped behind the door. She knocks again and listens. Gerard has turned his music off, which must mean that he’s gone out. He never stops with it, from when he gets up in the morning until eleven on the dot each night. The only times there is silence is when he goes out. Weird bugger, thinks Cher. Far too much time locked up in there, if you ask me.
    She hears Collette call out to ask who it is. She doesn’t sound friendly. She sounds like she might have had one visitor too many already today.
    ‘Only me,’ she says. Then, when the announcement is met by silence, adds: ‘Cher. From upstairs.’
    ‘Oh.’
    She hears the sound of the snib being slid off the Yale lock before the knob turns. Not taking any chances, then. I did that to her, thinks Cher, ruefully.
    The door cracks open, and Collette peers at her. Cher brandishes her gifts and flashes her a wide smile. ‘Peace offering.’
    ‘Oh,’ says Collette. ‘Thank you. But really, there’s no need. I’m not offended. Don’t worry.’
    ‘All right, then,’ says Cher. ‘Housewarming present.’
    ‘I – no, really, I’m okay. I don’t need anything. You don’t have to…’
    ‘Oh, come on,’ says Cher, ‘I’m doing my best, here.’
    ‘I’m really tired,’ says Collette, and her face looks for a moment as though it might crumple into tears. ‘Really. I should just go to bed.’
    Cher’s not taking no for an answer. She stopped taking no for an answer when she left the Wirral. ‘It won’t even start to get dark for a couple of hours. Call it a nightcap.’
    Collette sees that she’s not going to get away with rejecting her and reluctantly lets the door swing open. Walks ahead of Cher into the room and stands in the middle of the carpet, looking around as if she doesn’t know what to do next. ‘Sorry. It’s a mess.’
    She’s clearly been sleeping again – or lying in bed, at least. The duvet is thrown to one side, and there’s a deep indentation in the thin pillows she’s piled on top of each other. On the floor, there’s a small pile of clothes.
    ‘That’s okay.’ Cher reassures her, ‘you should see mine. And I’ve been here months.’
    ‘It’s not – it doesn’t help that the place is full of