Idris moved cities in March. By August he had spoken to nobody outside work for weeks.

He does not join anything. He picks the Saturday morning clear up at the community centre, because his neighbour mentioned it and because there are bins to move, which means nobody will expect him to be charming.

The first week he predicts, in writing, that people will find him odd and he will leave after twenty minutes. He goes. Two men argue cheerfully about a trolley. Someone hands him a coffee. He stays fifty minutes and leaves when he wants to, which was always allowed.

He writes one line afterwards: nobody found me odd, I did not enjoy all of it, one person knows my name now. Nothing has been fixed. Something has been recorded.