At seven o'clock on Wednesday - prompt - Miranda got a text message. "He's here!" she announced, checking it.

"Where?" asked Rona.

"Just outside" Miranda said, already jogging down the hallway towards the door.

"I didn't hear him knock!" Rona shouted after her, but Miranda was already opening the door and ignored her.

There was a short, fair-haired man standing on the doorstep, his cheeks flushed from the cold. "Hi, Mir" he said to Miranda, and Rona heard some kind of an accent but she didn't know enough about English accents to place it.

"Come in, come in!" Miranda urged. "Christ, it's got cold out there. Not that it's much better in here. Well, I mean, we've got a heater and the agent says they'll send someone around to fix it soon. I mean, the house isn't usually as cold as this. And your room, if you move in, it's generally warmer than the others 'cause it's smaller. But it's not that small. Um . . . Anyway, come in and meet my housemate Rona!"

Rona had stayed where she was, in the sitting-room in front of the radiator she and Miranda shared, but she'd stood up when Miranda had opened the front door. She heard the Miranda and her friend coming down the hallway. "I tried the doorbell" Miranda's friend was saying, "but maybe it didn't work."

"We have a doorbell?" Miranda asked, genuinely surprised. "I guess I've never had to use it."

"Hi" Rona said, holding her hand out as Miranda and the friend entered the sitting-room.

"Wow" said the man, looking around, "nice sitting-room. Big."

"Yeah, you can do a lot of sitting in here" Miranda joked. "Anyway, this is my housemate Rona. Rona, Will."

"Hi" Rona said again.

"Rona" Will said, shaking her hand. "Where does that come from?"

"Don't ask" Rona said. "So Miranda tells me you're from England. Whereabouts?"

"Wales, actually" Will said. "Swansea. You know it?"

"Yeah, of course" Rona said, trying to picture Wales on a map.

"Anyway let's give you the tour" Miranda said, trying with her eyebrows and with subtle nods of her head to tell Rona to turn the radiator up.