Lundi 08h00

Charlotte “Coco” Brunhild caught her reflection in the window and instantly recoiled. Her first thought was to look over her shoulder and demand why the hell her aged mother had suddenly appeared on Métro Line 8 at the Strasbourg–Saint-Denis station, but then she remembered one of the distinct differences between the two of them. Coco’s mother, an Orthodox Jew, always wore a wig and had it cut and styled bi-weekly, whilst Coco, who had never worn a wig (well, apart from that one time) and probably not had it cut or styled in more than a year. More importantly, her mother would be appalled to be seen in public with dyed blue locks which no matter what Coco tried, more often than not frizzed like she had stuck her finger in a socket. I’m turning into my mother. The thought terrified Coco as she shuffled along the carriage, eyes darting from side to side as she tried to find a seat which was not adjacent to someone who looked like a serial killer, or was high on drugs, or still drunk, or basking in an odour which would offend even the hardiest of noses like hers.

Ultimately, Coco knew wherever she sat, she would most likely end up sitting next to someone who was a combination of all those disparate factors. And to top it all, he would most likely sit with his legs spread, pushing a squidgy thigh against her as if he was instigating some archaic mating ritual. Then he would almost certainly turn his head to her, flash her a wink, conveying a simple message. Yeah babe, you could have a piece of this if you play your cards right.

Coco sighed. It had been a long night, in a rotten bed filled with lumps and sheets which seemed to delight in sticking to her pyjamas. She could also still smell the faint aroma of urine, not hers she was fairly sure, rather that of her four-year-old daughter, Esther, who had taken to bed wetting again, only months after having seemingly grown out of it. Coco shared her bed with Esther and her second youngest child, Cedric, who at almost twelve, had started with the tell-tale signs of puberty and all its relevant pitfalls, mainly, she envisaged, manifesting in an intense hatred for his mother and the fact he was still having to share a bed with her.

Coco flopped heavily onto a seat, a cloud of musty dust covering her. She wrinkled her nose, nostrils flaring at the dirt cloud as it landed on the trusty blue-green-checked wool coat she wore. It was dirty enough as it was, without absorbing dead skin cells, or worse, from Métro seats.

She closed her eyes. It was Monday morning, and she had spent two whole days at home intending to clean the cramped two-bedroom apartment she shared with her four children and the nanny, Helga, a mature German woman who slept at the foot of Coco’s bed on a rollout bed. Helga was prone to night terrors, which usually resulted in her shouting what sounded like expletives in German. When they had first begun, Coco had tried to wake her and had received a black eye as a thank you. Neither Coco nor her kids had tried to drag Helga from her slumber since then.

The apartment, on the tenth floor of a block which might have once been considered chic, but was now bordering on being condemned, was accessed by a rickety lift which barely worked, and following an unwelcome encounter in it the previous year, Coco faced a daily dilemma - risk an asthma attack tackling the narrow winding staircase, or to face her demons in the lift. Most days, the lift won, but it always broke her day, and she spent it with flashbacks of what had transpired. Find out who made me do this. The words still haunted her. If she could move to a different apartment, she would, but the fact remained she could barely afford the apartment she had, let alone afford to find one better.

‘Hey, mama. You like this?’

Coco’s eyes snapped open. She had not noticed the morbidly obese pig who had squeezed into the seat next to her. He was gesturing at his groin, pointing at what appeared to be an erection in his pants. Her eyes widened. At least she assumed it was an erection, though she could not exactly be sure. She pushed herself up from the seat with a weary sigh.

‘When my son was born, he had a bigger penis than you, you useless waste of semen,’ she spat in the man’s direction. He snorted, giving her a two-finger gesture.

Coco shuffled away. She spotted an elderly man sitting on the other side of the carriage. The only available seat was next to him. She took a moment to assess him. He was sleeping, his head resting on his chest. As far as she could tell, he appeared respectable enough. The raincoat he was wearing appeared clean and expensive, and his shoes seemed new and highly polished. His hair was white and neat. She dropped her body heavily into the seat next to him, hopeful that she could squeeze in a quick nap before arriving at her final destination. Work. The place she spent more time than anywhere else in return for a pay cheque which barely covered her living expenses.

She accidentally nudged the man with her elbow. ‘Oh, désolé, Monsieur,’ she sighed, pulling her arms together into her lap.

The man slumped towards her. She tutted and pushed him away from her, hoping it would not be another one of those sorts of mornings on Line 8. His head fell backwards, his face pivoted in her direction. His eyes were wide open, staring straight at her, a trickle of blood escaping down his chin. She sighed again. She did not need a doctor to tell her what she was looking at.

‘Goddamnit, this can’t be how my week begins!’ she exhaled, her body crumbling.