Let Angus have the flat, let Siri go about her life however she wanted. But she ended up on Glendower Street as inevitably as if every street in the city had been designed to draw her home. Leaving the bin bag he’d given her slumped on the landing, Lynne let herself into the flat. It was cold, and as she went round adjusting radiators and drawing curtains, setting things right, she started to see, highlighted, as thermal imaging shows up where a house leaks wasted energy, all the things Angus got wrong. Glaring from the kitchen shelves, the tumblers he consistently replaced upside down; neon outlined the windows left unlocked; in the washing machine he failed every time to empty, damp clothes, all melded together, seemed to phosphoresce. She shook, angrier with Angus now than with Raymond. Glendower Street was her sanctuary, and with every bit of thoughtlessness, the invader was wrecking it. Yet she could no more have told Angus how his mistakes infuriated her than she could have listed the numerous small gestures she made that favoured him: ironing his socks, making sure she always served him first at supper.
