By Emma Hardy

Location: Alexandra Road South, Whalley Range

I’m putting out the rubbish. She is loitering by the communal bins, next to the two clapped-out fridges nobody has phoned the council to have collected.

‘I thought there was a back door,’ she tells me, ‘just there.’ She points at the old convent building, converted in a manner befitting the style of the original building and now offering professional tenants 21st-century comfort and convenience.

I smile, mouth ‘oh’ and raise my eyebrows.

‘How do you get in?’

‘Round the front,’ I tell her.

‘But there’s no sign?’

I haven’t got time for this. People always get confused. It says 28 on the front gate. There are three blocks with different names. We end up with each other’s post.

‘Where are the nuns?’

It’s the first time anyone’s asked me that.

‘I need to speak with them.’

I want to explain, to tell her they left long ago.

‘Where are the nuns?’ she asks me again.

A driver beeps a horn on the main road outside; her car is blocking the entrance gate.

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