In the back of the car, her brother told her he was looking for some freelance session work.
‘I’m thinking of becoming a sound engineer,’ he said. ‘Vaguely, anyway.’
Nora was happy to hear this. ‘Well, I think you should do it. I think you’d like it. I don’t know why. I’ve just got a feeling.’
‘Okay.’
‘I mean, it might not be as glamorous as being an international rock star, but it might be ... safer. Maybe even happier.’
That was a tough sell, and Joe wasn’t entirely buying it. But he smiled and nodded to himself. ‘Actually, there’s a studio in Hammersmith and they’re looking for sound engineers. It’s only five minutes from me. I could walk it.’
‘Hammersmith? Yes. That’s the one.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I just think it sounds good. Hammersmith, sound engineer. It sounds like you’d be happy.’
He laughed at her. ‘Okay, Nora. Okay. And that gym I was telling you about? It’s right next door to the place.’
‘Ah, cool. Any nice guys there?’
‘Actually, yes, there is one. He’s called Ewan. He’s a doctor. He goes to cross-training.’
‘Ewan! Yes!’
‘Who?’
‘You should ask him out.’
Joe laughed, thinking Nora was just being playful. ‘I’m not even one hundred per cent sure he’s gay.’
‘He is! He’s gay. He isone hundred per cent gay. And one hundred per cent into you. Dr Ewan Langford. Ask him out. You have to trust me! It will be the best thing you ever do ...’
Her brother laughed as the car pulled up at 33A Bancroft Avenue. He paid, on account of Nora still having no money and no wallet.
Mr Banerjee sat at his window, reading.
Out on the street, Nora saw her brother staring in astonishment down at his phone.
‘What’s up, Joe?’
He could hardly speak. ‘Langford ...’
‘Sorry?’
‘Dr Ewan Langford. I didn’t even know his surname was Langford but that’s him.’
Nora shrugged. ‘Sibling intuition. Add him. Follow him. DM him. Whatever you have to do. Well, no unsolicited nude pics. But he’s the one, I’m telling you. He’s the one.’
‘But how did you know it was him?’
She took her brother by the arm, and knew there was no explanation she could possibly give. ‘Listen to me, Joe.’ She remembered the anti-philosophy of Mrs Elm in the Midnight Library. ‘You don’t have tounderstandlife. You just have toliveit.’
As her brother headed towards the door of 33A Bancroft Avenue, Nora looked around at all the terraced houses and all the lampposts and trees under the sky, and she felt her lungs inflate at the wonder of being there, witnessing it all as if for the first time. Maybe in one of those houses was another slider, someone on their third or seventeenth or final version of themselves. She would look out for them.
She looked at number 31.
Through his window Mr Banerjee’s face slowly lit up as he saw Nora safe and sound. He smiled and mouthed a ‘thank you’, as if simply her act of living was something he should be grateful for. Tomorrow, she would find some money and go to the garden centre and buy him a plant for his flowerbed. Foxgloves, maybe. She was sure he liked foxgloves.
