Screenwriter Tom Stone is madly in love with his wife, Ann. Approaching 40, they are expecting their first child. But their happiness and wellbeing prove all too brittle in the face of Tom’s floundering career, spiralling debts and strained new friendship with wealthier couple Kate and Simon. However, it’s Ann’s growing belief that she is being followed by a homeless person that creates their most sinister problem, and unease gestates alongside their baby.
This is a disturbing, sad and brilliantly paced novel; a page-turner that’s too easy to gobble your way through. Perkins’ writing is electric (‘I’d like to be inside her somehow, to strap her ribcage on over my own and see the world from behind her skin like a serial killer in a lurid film,’ declares Tom when conveying his all-consuming love for Ann) and scattered with London vernacular – the debris of a punched-through car window is ‘Hackney hail’.
The story is interesting, but Perkins’s real strength is her ability to give voice to the concerns of Ann and Tom and those around them. It’s alarmingly believable to read about someone on the cusp of 40 who is still beset with twenty- and thirtysomething concerns about housing, jobs and money. Perkins has a sharp wit and a great ear. She captures Londoners’ quirks and quiddities with acid brilliance (the setpiece scene at a Hampstead party made me laugh out loud on the tube), and exposes the city’s class and colour stratifications with subtle honesty.
