While Georgina and Ka Lei were out earning the money to stay afloat, Lucy took on the role of housemaid. She stayed in the flat all day and drifted in and out of shock-induced lethargy that made her sleep for several hours in the day and stay awake all night. In between resting periods she shuffled about the flat, slowly and deliberately carrying out mundane tasks. She folded blankets, smoothed sheets. She arranged clothes into neat piles. She spent an hour on a task that would normally have taken her a few minutes. Ka Lei and Georgina tiptoed around the flat. They tried to stay out of Lucy’s way. At night-time they lay wide-eyed in the darkness and whispered to one another. They looked towards the wall where they knew Lucy would be listening: Lucy – the bringer of evil, the spoiler of everything. As much as they sympathised with her, she had thrown them into a world they had never asked to enter. The happy home that they had created was ruined. Now they had to get out of the flat to find any privacy.
