Shelly allowed Hannah to talk for a few more minutes about all the things that would be nice to have in a house - a bathtub, a spare room, a big sitting-room, a back garden - and then she interrupted, lest Hannah should talk herself into a position neither of them could escape from:

"We need to start a list" she said.

"A shopping list?" Hannah asked, eyeing a green-grocer they were passing.

"No" Shelly said, but she turned her head as they passed a basket of apples set up on the footpath outside the grocer. "Those look -" she started, but then she noticed that the apples were starting to dry and wrinkle. She turned away from them again and kept walking, and she couldn't tell if she was matching Hannah's pace or if Hannah was matching her. "I mean a list of what we're looking for in a house" she said. "I mean what we're really looking for. What we can't live without."

"I can't live without a bath" Hannah insisted.

"Hannah, of course you can."

"No I'm serious, I'm going to need a bath when I finish moving house. A really long bath. And even if it's the only bath I have in ten years I'm going to need it, that's a deal-breaker."

Shelly knitted her mouth in a small frown. "Okay" she said.

"Your turn" Hannah said.

"My turn?"

"Name something you can live without."

"That's not how it works, Hannah. It's not a game."

"Why not?"

"Well -" Shelly thought about it and she honestly couldn't think of a reason why. "Sash windows" she said.

"What windows?" Hannah laughed. "Why?"

"Don't ask questions, Han. Just - trust me on that. I want sash windows."

"Okay" Hannah said in bemusement. But secretly she was pleased: it was so unlike Shelly to be so irrational, so unpractical. It was endearing.