DECLUTTERING

Scarlett hadn’t gone out for New Year’s Eve, despite the best efforts of her friends to lure her. She just hadn’t felt like it.

So New Year’s Day found her sitting in her flat with a tub of ice cream, scrolling through pictures on her phone of her friends pre and post New Year’s Eve knees-up.

Never again, her friend Sandra had texted with a photo, showing her looking somewhat green about the gills outside a bar.

Scarlett was trying to decide if she should feel jealous or relieved to have missed all the fun, when someone knocked on her front door.

She could just make out through the frosted glass of the top half that it was the chap from Flat 3B. Cheerful Charlie, as she’d always thought of him, because he whistled as he carried his bike up from the lobby. They hadn’t ever spoken, though she’d nodded at him in passing.

However, when she opened the door, he didn’t look cheerful at all. He tapped his foot