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I would become a prisoner in my own house if I stayed put. For a year I had hidden myself away in here, bonding
     so tightly with my children that we were almost an indivisible organism, breathing, sleeping, waking, emptying our bladders
     and our bowels in total synchrony. For a year I had been too tired to feel an adrenaline surge. Too tired to feel an anything
     surge in fact.
    But when a woman falls out of the sky in front of you it gives you a jolt. I felt electrified by the shock, as though part
     of my brain that was dead had been charged and regenerated. Disaster euphoria. It's an ugly concept, but, for all my disapproval,
     Jane's excitement was contagious. I had put my working life aside, I had put all my passions behind me, and I was so far exiled
     from the working world that I scarcely missed it, but this morning, Jane had paraded my previous existence in front of me,
     and I wanted it so badly I could scarcely breathe. I present it as a logical argument, and of course it all makes sense, cause
     and effect, but the truth is that that morning I just felt in my guts something that had been building up for months and was
     bursting out of me like a need for some narcotic. I had to get out of the house, and I had to get back to work.
    Standing there at the window, with the twins in my arms, my head was buzzing. I was chasing ten trains of thought in ten different
     directions. I tried to focus. I needed help. I needed a babysitter.
    I called my mother, who is a babysitter only in extremis. I called her mobile, because I never know whether she'll be at her
     house, or at my older sister's. Lorna has had chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS, for almost two years now, and my mother spends
     two or three evenings a week with her, as well as running her own law practice in Streatham. Which is to say that my mother
     has enough on her plate. But she came because it was an emergency. Or that was how it felt.
    An hour later I closed my ears to the petulant squawks issuing from Hannah and gently disengaged myself from William, who
     had fastened his arms around my neck and his feet around my hips. I pecked my mother on her cheek and guiltily murmured my
     thanks. Then I walked out of the front door and pulled it shut behind me. There. It sounds so easy.
    Light as air, with no stroller to push, no babe in arms, I walked over to the black gloss door of number twelve, the only
     door that had been opened to me the night before. I wasn't sure which of the three doorbells was the one I wanted, so I rang
     all three just as I had the night before. At the top of the house, a window screeched open and a woman leaned out in a dressing
     gown, hair unbrushed, face white with exhaustion. It was like looking in the mirror.
    “What is it?” She frowned down at me. “Do I know you?”
    “I'm looking for the man who opened the door to me last night, I—”
    “I don't know who you're talking about. I've got a sick child in here. He's been up all night,” she said in desperation. “Just
     go away.”
    The window was slammed shut. A child? I hadn't noticed a child going in and out all the time I'd lived here. I had learned
     more about my neighbors in the last twelve hours than I'd learned in the last year, but perhaps now wasn't the time to suggest
     a get-together.
    I didn't dare ring again. I looked at my watch. It was nine on a Wednesday morning and my man had probably left for work by
     seven. I dug a paper and pen from my bag, sat on the step and scribbled a note.
    To Whosoever Opened the Door Last Night,
    Thank you for helping. I'm sorry about the table. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I'll reimburse you for the damage.
     Just let me know how much I owe you.
    Robin Ballantyne, number 19
    I slipped it through the letter slot, glancing guiltily back at my house, where the small pile of wood in the front yard was
     all that was left of the table. Whatever sentimental value it held had been comprehensively bashed out of it. I