She walked quickly as she always did. Her legs were still good, thank God. Alice was short. She could glimpse the building on the other side of the wall only at the top of each stride when her eyes were briefly level with the lichen-mapped top of the bricks. If anyone had been watching her from the other side of the wall, all they would have seen was the top of Alice’s hair, which she kept manageably short although it was still thick and lustrous black.

She walked so close to the wall that there was a faint susurration as the floral-patterned canvas bag she was carrying skimmed momentarily against it. She was glad of the knee length brown coat she was wearing because the afternoon had already begun to cool and the first chill of evening could be felt but, ever since she had put on weight around her hips and stomach, she found that the walk tired her, made her feel hot and weary even though she had abandoned the heels and wore only flats now.

The path at this point, by the brick wall, was overhung with trees. When a cooling evening breeze blew the leaves responded by slowly beginning to hiss but that sibilance turned imperceptibly into a persistent rattle followed by long silence.

Alice barely noticed the trees. She was looking at the path in front of her, thinking only of completing this familiar journey one more time. It was functional, changeless, and inevitable. She just wanted to get this long stretch along the straight path finished and done with. She had yet to climb the stairs and the thought daunted her, as it always did. She could see them, when her brisk stride bobbed her eyeline above the top of the wall. Metal stairs painted a dull mint green ascending the side of the building, doubling back on themselves, and then turning and doubling back again, ascending higher until out of sight.

Alice walked on briskly and tried not to think.

The boy with the pudding basin haircut in the brilliant white shirt was young, perhaps six or seven, very small and frightened. He didn’t know this place. He didn’t know this man. The man was wearing an equally brilliant shirt, untucked, over greyish loose trousers. The shirt was too small for him. It barely reached the top of his trousers at the front and was bunched up at the back around the collar where it had caught and pulled on his beefy shoulders. He had a thick black moustache, as wide as his top lip but no wider, a protuberant, fleshy nose which seemed to stop too far above his top lip, perhaps explaining the thick black moustache. His eyes were deep set and unreadable. His ears were large and set low on the side of his head.

They were standing beside black, iron railings through which the boy could see an empty grass area which was deep green around the edges but bilious mint green where it was in direct sunlight. Beyond the grass a row of tall trees created a thick darkness beneath their branches through which only small irregular shapes of brilliant light revealing more grass could be seen.

When the boy saw the woman walking beneath the dark trees his fear, the ordinary routine, diurnal fear of a small boy, turned to cold, wet terror of the heart and stomach. The woman’s head was low on her shoulders, craning forwards. She was looking directly at him and advancing with quick, masculine strides. She was carrying in one hand a big brown plastic bag. In the other, suspended from a piece of string which she was using as a handle, was a toilet seat which had been sawn in half widthways.

The man had taken a step back, still looking down at him. His hand half formed a fist, and he pursed his lips, impatient, pensive, bored. He said in a flat, ordinary voice, “What now?”

The boy wasn’t listening. He was watching the woman, only able to watch her, rapt, although he had leaned back, unaware that he was doing so, trying to get away from her without moving his feet. Yet.

The grass had been scorched yellow by weeks of sun. Even the dull brown bricks of the factory glowed. Only the heavy black fences made from stacked, oil blackened railway sleepers reflected no light.

Evan was happy. He was still wearing his coat because he had spent the afternoon in the freezer bay, and it would take a few minutes before the unseasonable late October sun warmed through to his bones. He looked again at his notes, partly to be sure that he hadn’t made a mistake, although he knew he hadn’t, he had already checked his figures a dozen times or more. Mostly he looked again at the column of figures, the range of variables, the range of outcomes to feel that gut-deep thrill of relief. It was going to be alright this year, despite everything.

The unused mountains of coal behind the black, leaning fence of sleepers glistened and gleamed. The dry grass whispered and creaked around Evan’s ankles as he walked slowly away from the factory. The blank, black windows in their brilliant white frames were empty. A few lumps of coal, warmed by the sun and responding to some unguessable internal physics, slipped, and skidded for a few inches down the heap. The rattling, sibilant noise was loud in the shrill, stunned heat of the afternoon. Evan glanced towards it without breaking his stride and smiled.