1 Alex took a breath, then froze. For the briefest moment she had no idea how she had come to be standing on this upturned beer crate in this vast and ugly room, staring back at the faces of a hundred hungry strangers. Tell us, they pleaded with bleary eyes and wetly gaping mouths. Tell us your secret. Before she could stop it, a memory surfaced of her thirteen-year-old self, paralysed centre-stage and stammering like an idiot, in her first and last school play. Seconds later – oh God, not now, not again – the memory blurred and shivered. The vertigo drop-kicked her belly. The emptiness opened up inside. Who the hell was she? Why the hell was she here? She fished around for a mental handhold; felt her thoughts spiral towards the void; was certain, for a moment, that she was about to throw up. Then: For Christ’s sake, woman. She swallowed convulsively. Get a hold of yourself. You know how to handle this. Forget the past. Concentrate on the now. She stared down at her flashy heels, an impulsive party-night treat-to-self. She let out her breath in one long blow. You are strong, she silently chanted, thinking of the exercises Chloe had taken her through the evening before. You are powerful. This is your moment. Trust it. Let everything else go. The nausea peaked, flickered, dissolved. She cleared her throat. She looked up. She attempted a smile. ‘How the fuck,’ she croaked, ‘did I end up in this fairy tale?’ There was a ripple of laughter, a couple of cheers. Alex took a tentative sip from her beer and felt the void retreat. Over the heads of the crowd she spotted the EUDOMONIA logo that the design guys had smoothed onto the back wall seconds before the first guests arrived. She let the smile widen into a grin. Yes. Pantone Warm Red 172 was perfect, after all. ‘I mean, seriously.’ She took a proper swig from the bottle and felt the fluency roll back in. ‘This can’t be right. Six months ago I was stuck in a dead-end job, knackered all the time, barely scraping together the rent. Not to put too fine a point on it, really quite miserable. Then . . .’ She paused and felt the weight of their stares pressing against her. She was glad, now, that she’d taken that reckless hour to get her highlights refreshed. She held the silence for a few more seconds. ‘Well, frankly, it feels like a miracle.’ A collective sigh. ‘I mean, people don’t just change overnight.’ A rumble of Huhs. A few weary nods. ‘And yet . . .’ A wry shrug. ‘Hell, perhaps it’s karma. Lady Luck. Divine intervention. Allahu Akbar! Of course, we’ve still got a long way to go. This is just the beginning. But to have come so far so quickly . . .’ She gestured from the huddle of wheeled desks on one side of the room to the glass-walled meeting pod on the other. ‘Well, it’s obviously what I’m meant to be doing. At bloody last!’ A tide of whoops. A froth of applause. ‘Although,’ Alex went on, as the whistles died down, ‘it’s really Lenni who should be up here, not me.’ She smiled down at him where he stood beside the beer crate, his pink scalp visible through his white-blond hair. ‘Seriously,’ she said, well aware that Lenni would much rather be celebrating alone with a spreadsheet and a storm of Finnish techno crashing through his headphones, ‘Eudo would still be a pipe dream if this guy hadn’t agreed to meet me for coffee in Farringdon, one Wednesday six months ago.’ She held out her hand, freshly manicured in the closest the Filipino girl had been able to find to Warm Red 172. ‘Let’s hear it for Lenni.’ A roar. Lenni ducked his head and waved them away. Alex widened the gesture to embrace the room. ‘And it goes without saying that we owe a big debt of gratitude to all of you, for taking a risk on us so early on. The remarkable fact that we’re able to gather here in our first proper office – sorry, co-working space – is down to our incredible angels Ahmed and Dale. It’s not exactly Google Campus, but it’s a damn sight better than the table in my flat. Especially seeing as we’re going to be recruiting like mad over the next few months. Talking of which, if any of you knows of a COO-in-waiting with a trust fund, give them my number, now.’ A third crest of cheers and laughter petered out into expectant silence. Alex ground a £600 lime-suede toe into the splintered wood. ‘I suppose,’ she said softly, ‘what I really want to say is this: don’t underestimate yourselves. Because, I promise you, even if you’ve been a total loser for your entire adult life, if you can just let go of your own bullshit – anything is possible. Literally anything.’ Eyes up. ‘Okay, heavy stuff over. Go and get pissed.’ This time, the roar was deafening. Alex jumped down from the crate. ‘Alright?’ she murmured to Lenni as they pushed their way through the slapping hands and jabbering voices. ‘Very good.’ ‘Bit corny?’ ‘They’re drunk. Corny is good.’ The air con was fighting a losing battle against the combination of month-long heatwave and a hundred under-deodorized, post-work people. Alex discreetly tried to billow a breeze under her vest as she fended off incomers with apologetic smiles and headed straight for Ahmed and Dale. The investors were caught in a thicket of neon-jeaned twenty-somethings, being buffeted by pitches. Turning herself into a windbreak, she pressed fresh cold Shoreditch Blondes into their palms. ‘Christ!’ She blew into her new fringe. ‘That was embarrassing.’ ‘Oh, you know what you’re doing,’ Ahmed said, appraising her from haircut to heels. ‘I picked up a copy of Flair at Victoria yesterday. That interview was spot-on.’ ‘Great!’ Alex touched his wrist. ‘I’m so glad you like it. Oh, it’s a bit fluffy, obviously, but we’ve already seen a huge spike in web traffic and a shedload of new sign-ups.’ ‘It’s like I said, Alex.’ Ahmed swilled a mouthful of beer. ‘You’re Eudomonia’s biggest asset. Personal profile pieces like this are just what we need, and you’re obviously a natural. I think it’s time to aim higher than a Tube rag. I’ll make a few calls.’ ‘Too fucking right.’ Dale slapped her on the back, leaving a damp palm-print on the silk. ‘Most of my founders are barely out of nappies and they can only speak in sodding ones and zeros. You’re special, doll.’ He raised his bottle. ‘To you. To us. To Eudo.’ They three-way-clinked, spotlit in a dozen envious stares. ‘To Eudo.’ Ten internally monitored minutes later, Alex handed the angels off to Lenni and sought out the hacks. By some communal freeloading instinct, they had congregated near the big rubber buckets of drinks and ice, the lifestyle editors eyeing the tech bloggers like beasts at a watering hole. Imagining herself as an alpha lioness, Alex stalked into their midst and fielded their predictable questions with a few piquant soundbites. Next, she sashayed over to the desks to smooth the nerves of a bundle of twitchy new-hires. She couldn’t remember all of their names, and she wasn’t entirely clear who was on her payroll and who was a plus one, so she stuck to general joshing and piss-takery. Then, replenished with another beer from a beautiful girl with a scarlet-tinted Afro, possibly one of the interns, she headed down to the far end of the room. It was time for some bonding with the other start-up that shared the sixth floor. Their product – brightly packaged organic protein balls – hung in clusters from six-foot plastic trees stationed around the walls. She was just passing the sofas that divided their spaces when someone grabbed her arm. She turned, a charming rebuff on her lips, and found that it was Harry. ‘Very slick,’ he said. ‘You really should have told me you were so miserable, six months ago.’ ‘Harry.’ Alex caught sight of her own face, sparkling with exhilaration in the mirrored wall of the kitchen module behind him. ‘Very funny,’ she murmured, punching his shoulder. It took some effort to drag her gaze away. Harry smoothed the sleeve of his jacket. He was looking incredibly handsome, in exactly the right amount of chestnut stubble and a new silver tie. ‘Your parents are here,’ he said, moving aside to reveal Alex’s mother, looking tiny amongst the oversized scarlet cushions, unwrapping a protein ball. ‘Mum!’ Alex perched on the arm of the sofa and leaned down to give her mother a hug. The cloud of Joy that engulfed her threatened to unleash a thousand memories and she experienced a wave of dizziness. She quickly pulled back. ‘Mum,’ she mumbled, focusing on the grain of the pleather beneath her palms. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ ‘We wouldn’t have missed it for the world, darling.’ Her mother patted Alex’s hand, took a small bite from the ball, chewed vigorously, then refolded the packaging over the remainder and hid it in her lap. ‘I like your new hair. Very smart. I always said you should go short. And what a shindig! But are you sure they won’t mind all this catering? Your angels? I mean, what in the name of heaven is birch water? This must have cost an arm and a leg.’ The dizziness passed. ‘It’s all sponsored, Mum,’ she sighed, straightening up. ‘Where’s Dad?’ Her mother shifted, squeaking. ‘He went to hide in the toilets, but that was quite a . . . Ah, there he is.’ Alex turned to see her father ambling over from the direction of the buckets with a brimming plastic cup in either hand. At the sight, so reminiscent of dozens of parties from her childhood, where she’d watched her father topping up the drinks of red-faced authors and agents from her sleepy nest on the kitchen sofa, the bottom inexplicably dropped out of her stomach. Bile surged into her mouth. She stumbled back into the people behind her. For fuck’s sake. Why is this happening? NOT NOW. ‘Hey there, Kansas, steady.’ He was there to catch her rebound, cups skittering across the floor, his deep transatlantic drawl cutting through the buzzing in her ears. He steadied her shoulders and held her at arm’s length, studying her face, but she pressed forward and folded into his chest. With her cheek squashed into the worn corduroy of his shirt, and the smell of soap and vodka filling her nose, the vertigo rushed back so violently that Alex thought she might actually faint. But then her father levered her gently upright and the memories receded. The laughter and the hip-hop flooded back in. It was okay. She was here. She was now. She was new Alex, extraordinary Alex, Founder-CEO. ‘Stupid heels,’ she muttered. She cleared her throat. She shook out her hair. ‘Sorry, Dad. You lost your drinks.’ ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. He rummaged in his pocket. ‘Here. I got something for you.’ He uncurled his knuckles to reveal a novelty USB stick topped with a canary-coloured block of Lego. ‘Somewhere to store your plans for world domination, I thought. Help pave that Yellow Brick Road you’re galloping down. I gather that paper is passé.’ ‘I love it.’ Alex slipped the USB into the pocket of her jeans and studied her father in turn. He had made an effort, in his best city jeans with his beard neatly trimmed, but his skin looked grey and there were purple hammocks under his eyes. The vertigo flickered. Here and now, Alex told herself firmly. She stepped back. ‘I’m so glad you let me drag you out of your cave,’ she said brightly. ‘I know how much you hate the Big Smoke. It feels like twenty years since I last saw you guys.’ ‘Seven months.’ Her mother struggled up from the sofa, shooing away Harry’s arm. ‘You haven’t been to Fring since’ – she waved from the games station to the miso vending machine – ‘all this.’ Alex felt her cheeks get hot. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just been so—’ ‘It’s a good thing,’ her father interrupted. He squeezed her mother’s shoulder. ‘We’re proud. You’re flying high now, Kansas. It’s the way it should be.’ ‘Although perhaps,’ Harry said, appearing on her other side and placing a hand on the small of her back, ‘you should go easy on the beer.’ ‘I’m fine,’ Alex said, sidestepping and defiantly taking another swig. ‘Just tired, that’s all. It’s been such a manic week.’ She glanced over her shoulder. Good. The massage girls were doing the rounds. Gemma was laying out the goody bags near the door. ‘We should go,’ her father said. He scooped up their coats from the sofa. ‘This is your night. We’re raising the average age in here by at least three decades.’ ‘No! Please. It’s so early!’ ‘It’s gone midnight, Al,’ Harry said, then muttered, ‘your mum’s feet are playing up.’ ‘But you’ve haven’t met anyone yet. You haven’t tried the—’ ‘Don’t fuss, darling,’ her mother said, wriggling into her cardigan. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow. And you know what I always say. Last to arrive, first to leave. That way . . .’ ‘You’re always welcome,’ Alex recited. ‘I know.’ As her father gave her another hug, she felt like she wanted to say something more. But the music was too loud, and over her mother’s shoulder she could see the intern flirting with Dale. ‘I’ll walk you back to the Premier Inn, Liz,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve got an early start.’ He brushed his lips across Alex’s cheek and murmured, ‘I need to see you.’ ‘Oh, baby, I told you. It’s been crazy here. I’ve barely even been home.’ ‘We need to talk. Will you come over for dinner tomorrow?’ ‘Ah, I’d love nothing better, but tomorrow night I have this women in tech event and—’ ‘Alex.’ ‘Honestly, I’m really sorry, but this big corporate sponsor is going to be there and—’ ‘Alex.’ Harry turned so that his back shielded them from her parents. ‘I talked to one of your employees tonight,’ he said, his voice suddenly clipped. ‘Toby, was it? Tom? Malnourished teenager with dreadlocks.’ ‘Oh. Tim. He’s one of our community managers.’ ‘Tim, then. Well, Tim, who seemed to think I was a waiter, kindly filled me in on your “deal” while you gave your little speech. He said that you’d narrowly missed a life of domestic slavery, before you’d seen the entrepreneurial light. I believe the exact phrase was “dead-eyed desk monkey about to become a baby machine”.’ Alex sighed. ‘Harry, please. Tim is . . . well, Tim is Tim.’ ‘But you as good as implied you thought the same, Alex. Up there, in front of everyone. You were pretty clear on how relieved you were to have escaped this life of terrible mediocrity. Our life, for the past five years. Our future, I rather thought.’ ‘Oh, baby, come on. You know that I was talking about me – about my own issues – not about us. And look, I know I’ve been neglecting you, but Lenni says we just need to—’ ‘Oh yes,’ Harry interrupted, his blue eyes narrowing. ‘Lenni. You’ve obviously got very close to Lenni.’ ‘Oh, Harry. Please.’ Alex rose up on her toes and planted a kiss on his lips. ‘Okay. You win. I’ll skive the event and we’ll do dinner. I do miss you too, you know.’ Alex watched Harry usher her parents towards the lifts. Her mother, marching beside him in her low heels, kept up a steady rill of conversation. Her father, trailing behind them, turned and winked. Alex clicked her heels together and blew him a kiss. Harry didn’t look back, she noticed. She knew she had been neglecting him. But right now wasn’t about Harry’s jealousy or insecurity, or whatever it was. Right now was about what was going right, and she was damn well going to enjoy it. East Road was uncomfortably hot, even at 2 a.m. The faint breeze did nothing but waft a sour cocktail of tar and nightbus fumes across Alex’s face, but she didn’t care. She was full to the brim, electric with connection. The manhole cover ringwormed with gum, the gutter frotted with ash, the peroxide wig nesting beneath the stunted sapling: they all served to make her night even more magical, because they were proof that it was real. She hooked her bag over her shoulder, clenched the sleeve of her laptop under the same arm and swiped her phone to life with her thumb, unveiling a glitter of alerts. Flicking across the screen, only dimly aware of the blisters on the balls of her feet, she slid into autopilot. Right into Chart Street, the lights of the council-flat balconies sputtering in the corner of her eye. Round the silent black rectangle of Aske Gardens basketball court. Left onto Pitfield Street. North, towards the canal. Of the many new habits that Alex had developed over the past few months, the ability to cull digital bumf was one of the best. After years spent wading through the bogs of social media, wasting whole hours rubbernecking disingenuously curated lives, she was now a ruthless ninja at sifting the genuinely useful from the seductively inane. Within minutes she had bulk-accepted fifty-seven LinkedIn invitations, bulkdeleted fourteen Facebook friend requests and archived sixty-one non-urgent emails. Harry aside, she could already feel the success of the evening gushing through her digital tributaries: sparking new alliances, reinforcing the old, leaving a wake of excitement that she knew would continue to froth over the next few days. When her eye caught on some charity-spam for a Sudanese flood – or possibly a Vietnamese drought – her electric sense of connection was so strong she not only texted to donate twenty quid, but filled out the Gift Aid form. Shouts and the shiver of chain-link rang out from Shoreditch Park. A quick scan confirmed nothing more menacing than bored teenagers throwing cans at the tennis-court fence. Alex turned back to her phone. There was one voicemail from an unknown landline – a landline, ye gods! – and another from Mae. She pressed to play the landline message, but the moment the Celtic accent came down the line, she realized it was the woman from that academic institute – SOAS, was it? CGAS? – who had been bothering her about some research project all day. She saved it for later, glanced up at the shuttered shops and scaffolding of Whitmore Road, then skipped forward to the message from Mae. Her friend was apologizing – barely audible over the sound of Bo’s screams – that the babysitter had let her down. Poor Mae. But it had probably been for the best. Tech launches weren’t really her scene. Alex crossed the bridge onto De Beauvoir Road. She was just logging into the back-end of Eudo, to get a head start on tomorrow’s behind-the-scenes party blog, when the man slammed into her. She flew a good couple of feet before she hit the pavement. As she rolled onto her back, he planted his knees in her stomach, pinning her down. One of his hands splayed over her mouth and his thumb pressed into her eyelid, making the darkness warp and spark. The other wrapped around her neck, the pads of his fingers rough-skinned behind her ears. He smelled of body odour and fast food, and he was breathing in laboured gasps. A single drop of sweat splashed from his skin onto her lips as she lay beneath him, lungs burning, heart rabbit-drumming in her chest. He shifted his weight and she managed to reach for her right foot, jackknifed up beneath her left buttock – just as he reared back to reveal an old-fashioned farmer’s shotgun. In one desperate motion, Alex stabbed five inches of hand-stitched stiletto heel into her attacker’s solar plexus. Finally catching her breath, she screamed. He reeled back with a strangled grunt while she rolled over the kerb and out into the road. Scrabbling against the tarmac, she got onto her hands and knees and screamed again. ‘Oi! OI!’ There were shouts and footsteps, and now another man appeared, a different one. Oh God. A gang. The new man was moving towards her now, ready to take his turn. ‘NO,’ Alex cough-shouted. ‘GET . . . AWAY . . .’ ‘Awight, lady, awight.’ The new man took a step backwards into the orange puddle of the street light, pushing back his hoodie, holding up his palms. He was a boy, really: pasty, stubbled, slightly overweight. His face glistened with sweat. ‘Wasn’t me, lady. Wasn’t me. Mi boy just run after him. You awight?’ Alex remained on her knees, staring at him mutely for a second. Then she slumped down onto her heels with a sob. Tried to get up. Sank back down. Unbuckled her remaining shoe, with shaking fingers. Eventually got to her feet. ‘You awight?’ The boy was keeping his distance. ‘Fuck,’ Alex said. ‘Fuck!’ ‘You get a look at him?’ ‘He had a gun. A massive, fucking’ – her voice wobbled – ‘shotgun, like Mr fucking McGregor.’ The boy, looking worried, squinted beyond Alex into the dark. ‘Din know he was packing. We only saw his back. Came running when we heard you shout.’ He indicated over his shoulder to a paved courtyard in front of a council block. Beyond this, Alex knew, was a bollard-lined strip of grass where the De Beauvoir kids liked to hang out. Walking on the canal path below, she had more than once clocked the skulking hoodies with their lurching Staffies and expensive phones. The boy’s expression brightened. ‘S’awight. Here he is.’ Alex turned to see a lean boy in a white vest jogging towards them. He gathered up her bag, laptop, phone and shoe as he approached and held them out to her at arm’s length. ‘Couldn’t get him,’ he said. His cornrows were bleeding sweat and his hands, when she brushed them to take back her stuff, were slippery. ‘Weren’t big, but he were fucking fast. You awight, lady?’ ‘Yes,’ Alex replied, clasping the laptop to her chest like a shield. Instantly sober, she could feel the chill of shock on its way, the delayed seeping-in of the pain. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’ ‘He had a gat,’ the white boy said to the black boy. ‘Fuck.’ The black boy dragged up his vest to reveal a skinny, hairless chest. He wiped the vest over his forehead. ‘Good thing he were fast, then.’ He nodded at Alex. ‘Should call the feds.’ ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’ ‘Din even get yer lappy, did he? Wanker.’ She called the police, shivering, and spoke to a woman who said a car was on its way. The boys waited with her until headlights flashed over the speed bump at the end of the road, before jogging off, the podgy one giving her an awkward gun-salute wave. The police took a statement. They were sympathetic but circumspect about the chances of an arrest. ‘You’d be surprised, the number of guns circulating around here,’ said the policeman, a tired-looking guy in a Sikh turban. ‘Rare to see one, five years ago. I blame The Wire.’ ‘You’re sure you don’t need to go to hospital?’ asked his partner, a girl who looked about fifteen. ‘No, really, I’m fine. I’d rather get home.’ ‘Is there anyone who can come and stay with you?’ ‘I’ll call my fiancé. My flat’s just over there.’ Thankfully her bag had been zipped, so her wallet and keys were still inside. They walked her to her door, and the girl handed her a leaflet with the details of a trauma helpline. ‘Nice,’ she said, holding up the evidence bag containing Alex’s right shoe. ‘Thanks.’ Alex gave her a weak smile. ‘It was a magical evening. Until this.’ ‘Get inside. Have some tea, plenty of sugar. Call your fiancé. We’ll be in touch.’ Standing in the lift, Alex felt her throat begin to thicken and her sinuses sting. A dozen memories of other lonely, tearful moments spent in the lift over the years crowded in. The vertigo rushed up again, her stomach lurched and she felt the bright patina of the evening shiver and slide. Beneath it, she sensed the void, lurking. Felt how easy it would be to let it crack open, let herself tumble in. Alex took a deep breath, cleared her throat and swiped at her eyes. She reminded herself of all the good things that had happened that evening, of all the lovely things people had said. She forced herself to recall how she had felt up on that crate, after the initial wobble had passed: powerful, admired, fully alive. Extraordinary. Bulletproof. She had wondered whether she should tell someone about her little episodes, as she had come to call them. Perhaps Mae. Or Chloe. Wasn’t she paying Chloe to coach her through exactly this sort of psychological self-sabotage? But she’d read all about founder burnout. She knew they’d simply tell her to slack off. And she certainly wasn’t about to do that, just as her fledgling new career reached its first real tipping point. She simply had to stay focused on the present. She wasn’t the kind of woman who did tears, or irrational fears. Not any more. Inside the flat she double-locked the door, dumped her stuff on the floor and pulled up Harry’s number on her mobile. Then she paused, her thumb hovering over the screen. Harry would get a cab straight over, he would love the chance to fuss, and that was the last thing she wanted: victimhood, cosseting. It would seem like proof that evenings this good weren’t allowed. That months – that lives – this good weren’t allowed. That, more to the point, as a woman alone, she wasn’t strong enough to handle the flipside. It would be tantamount to letting that crackhead win. Throwing her phone onto the pile, Alex veered into the bathroom and inspected the damage as she peeled off her jeans and vest. There was a long scrape on her right arm, a cut on her knee, bits of gravel and glass embedded in her palms. She’d probably have a lot of bruises in the morning – well, later in the morning. But other than surface scratches she was, as she had told her unlikely saviours, unhurt. She got into the shower and stood under lukewarm water for almost half an hour until the shaking stopped. She rubbed her hair dry, applied cream and plasters, and pulled on Harry’s Durham Uni T-shirt. In the kitchen-lounge-diner she made herself a cup of builder’s with three sugars. Then she went through to her bedroom and twisted the blinds shut. Six months ago this would have crippled her. She would have stayed at home for days, let Harry wrap her in cotton wool, made some stupid phone call to Ahmed and Dale. Crumbled. Fucked it up. But not now. She was a very different Alex from the one she had been six months ago. Alex climbed gingerly onto her bed. She reached into her beside cabinet and fished out a couple of paracetamol, feeling her limbs already starting to stiffen and her head ache. What sort of shit retro mugger used a shotgun, anyway?