Ali checked the woman in the mirror, head to toe. All she could see were the imperfections; the ones that hadn’t bothered her before, but were becoming niggles. Agitated tugs of unresolved wants. A mole over her forearm vein, red pinpricks on her biceps; a single degree of asymmetry on her nose. The surgeon had recommended addressing them during her last visit. Why did she decline? She was 41. The price to maintain her looks was only going to increase.
The mirror showed her an old woman pulling an ugly frown. She quickly switched the screen off.
Why was she noticing this now? Words came to her: Shareholders being customers, customers being products… The words of that wretched woman - that parvenu out of Brixton - overweening beyond her station.
Ali needed a drink, of the fortifying kind. The kitchen menu scrolled over her desk, knowing her wants before she did. She ordered a Lillet Blanc, selecting 'tumbler', adding an orange twist and one medium ice cube. Advanced options dropped down. She ticked ‘bring the bottle’.
Her order buffered. Further in the house, the kitchen whirred to life.
She felt stressed and tired, capable of thinking only about one thing. Three tenants had invaded her home in a challenge no one rightly expected to deal with. The man - she assumed some variant of Bantu - had apparently behaved. Given Monty's later whining they had got on well, and he had stopped his friend from assaulting Tiffany.
Poor Tiffany. The image of her in tears, strangled and shaking, haunted Ali. That scummy, ill-bred young woman... how could anyone, however desperate, consider it okay to harm a child? It was a stark warning of how far these people would go if generosity's door opened even slightly. Ali hated herself for forgetting it. And what was the chav thinking chatting with Opal? Admitting to being shy, telling Opal she couldn't afford top surgery, and then asking her to donate money to the Hogarth Arts Scholarship? All Ali could think to tell her youngest was not to make up stories and go to bed.
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But even that woman wasn’t the biggest offender. Their leader, standing over Ali, reeking of e-cigarette fluid, glaring at her daughters photo. For her girls sake Ali accepted the demands - she could revisit it another time - but the challenge to her authority, the risk of it happening again...
Of the three invaders, this one was going to get it hardest.
Ali's inbox chimed. Accounts Payable: a polite confirmation Kendi Estate’s uplift was on hold. They signed the email off with a singular ‘regards’, evidently furious to be working late. Ali had other problems. A floodgate was open, an estate had been given an inch, an entitled expectation for a mile was due.
It felt so unfair. The pissant English worker, plodding through an easy if bleak existence, always forgetting their relative security. Ali had grafted all her life against constant competition, forever pleasing impossible parents, anticipating the spiteful schemes of female peers, dodging the lecherous advances of spoilt men. And she was accused of privilege. Did privilege help her every night, as her husband stumbled through the door? He was still walking free out there, wealthier and better connected than she, for all her privilege. Surgery could handle her physical wounds. The mental wounds had no cure.
So blessed to be in her position. So fortunate.
Her drink arrived. She gulped it down and started refilling. Her drone’s feed loaded as it idled over the Thames in a stacked bank of parking cubes. She took control of it, following air traffic chevrons on her HUD.
It veered off course. The chevrons turned red. Automatic controls pushed the drone back, as if it flew against an elastic band. She toggled stealth mode - a mode she wasn’t allowed but could afford. The drone pinged out of the fly lane. Its electric eye zeroed in on the estate.
She let it hover, eased into her chair, and began constructing a narrative.