She mused for a moment on stray cats to divert her attention from her aching legs. You could never make a pet out of a stray: you fed them, cared for them, but in a way that was both guilty and one-sided. The animals couldn't be approached, let alone petted. They came only because they were hungry and left the moment they'd eaten. Once you'd fed one, you had to keep on feeding it to avoid the guilty thought of the poor unloved creature going hungry, perhaps and very probably starving to death. But it was more than that. She knew, without examining such a thought too closely that she empathised with their plight. And somewhere, in her heart of hearts, she knew that their fate, their lot in life, was her own.
The air in her flat was uncomfortably cool, damp and stuffy, but her attention was soon diverted to other matters of more pressing importance. There was no mail on the floor. Her pleas for employment had gone unanswered. The lack of such paper litter on the floor made her feel momentarily empty inside, a feeling like that of all the Christmases she had spent as a child, alone, unloved and forgotten. For a long moment it felt as though she were staring at some yawning gulf rather than the floor. Taking off her coat and shoes did nothing to improve her mood. One of the sleeves of her jacket badly needed mending and the soles of her shoes were beginning to separate. Even if she managed to land a job, what was she going to do about clothes and an apartment? It was highly unlikely that anyone would give her the sizable advance she would need just to get started. No, they would take someone with new clothes, with a look of confidence, someone self-reliant and bright like a brand-new penny, who would ask for nothing, who would need nothing.
'Shut up!' Trying to block out her own thoughts, she put her hand over her ears, feeling as though she were about to begin screaming uncontrollably. 'Shut up, shut up!' Forcing herself into motion, she began peeling off her wet things. Shivering in the cool air, she went into the bathroom and started the bath.
There was no hot water.
Cursing, almost weeping in frustration, she went to her kitchenette, got out four battered aluminum pots, and began heating water.
An hour and a half later, she lay in the lap of warmth, and therefore, to her mind at least, luxury, letting the heat soak into her body, rebuild her flagging reserves of confidence and hope. By degrees her thoughts turned back to the ad she had read. 'It's probably long gone already,' she told herself, reasoning that by the time the ad appeared in the paper, some local back in England would already have heard or read about it and snapped it up. But thoughts of it kept niggling at her, teasing her with unrealistic thoughts of hope and escape, adventure and romance, of . . .