I woke up with Emma's hair in my face and her foot on my shin and her breathing slow and even against my shoulder.
The curtains were half-open. She never closed them properly because she said she liked waking up with the light, which was a romantic way of saying she was too lazy to walk to the window at midnight.
The January sun, thin and pale, was filling the bedroom with the kind of grey-gold light that made London look like a watercolour painting. The Dulwich rooftops were visible through the glass, the chimneys and the aerials and the bare trees, the city still waking up.
I lay there. Emma was pressed against me, her back to my chest, her red hair fanned across the pillow and across my face and into my mouth, because Emma's hair had its own ambitions and did not respect personal space.
