She sat in the yellow bath and wished it was avocado.  The tiles were small and black, pressed narrowly against each other, closing in on her.  There was no window, just a noisy fan and hurtful electric light.  She couldn’t hear anything beyond that fan, and the slosh of water.  Not even the echo of foreign voices in the stairwell.

At home, she thought, there would be other sounds.  Birds singing in the garden below.  Mum busily banging pots for dinner.  Dad cutting the grass, or opening the garage door on his arrival back from the shops, car filled with bags of unsurprising, familiar foods.

At home, she would not be ‘broadening her horizons’ in a tiny black bathroom with a yellow bath, but she would definitely be able to hear more.