Number 9 runs on two things: Marcus's van leaving at 6:40am, and a household income that arrives not monthly but meteorologically — great months, terrifying months, and no way to tell from inside which kind you're in until the invoices either land or don't. Self-employment is freedom, Marcus will tell you, sincerely, usually while doing paperwork at 10pm.
Morgan Close · No. 9
The Okafors at No. 9
Marcus, 34 · Self-employed electrician
Excellent sparky, word-of-mouth order book, charges slightly less than he should because he likes being liked. Treats good months as the new normal and bad months as a personal betrayal. The January tax bill arrives annually with the full force of complete surprise.
Blind spot: no tax pot — HMRC's share sits in the main account, looking spendable. Favourite saying: “It'll even out.” (Narrator: it does not even out.)
Jade, 30 · Salon stylist, on maternity leave
The realist of the operation, currently doing the hardest job on the street on statutory pay. Quietly started selling hair-care bundles on Instagram at 11pm feeds — small money, but hers, and growing. Keeps a notebook Marcus hasn't seen titled 'when I go back'.
Strength: sees the cash-flow problem clearly. Tension: saying so without it becoming An Argument.
Amara, 6 months · Chief expense
Sleeps in 40-minute instalments and has singlehandedly introduced her parents to the true price of things that are very small.
Costs: everything. Worth it: apparently, yes.
Life on the Close
Marcus and Tom Morgan run the street's informal tool library, settlement terms: a pint, eventually. Marcus quoted Ken's garden lights and then somehow did them for nothing, which Ken repaid in tomatoes for a full summer. Jade and Rachel at 14 swap babysitting and gallows humour in roughly equal measure.
The story so far
2026
Amara arrived in January. Jade's maternity leave began; the household went from lumpy-but-two-incomes to lumpy-and-one.
Autumn 2026
Best month on record in September — £6,100 invoiced. The tax bill's shadow lengthened toward January. These two facts had not yet been introduced to each other.
January 2027
They were introduced. £5,200 due, £2,340 in the account — and Jade's notebook on the table. Part paid, part on Time to Pay, and the NOT OURS account now skims 20% of every invoice on arrival. Day rate: up. Jade's £400: repaid first, as promised.
Threads to watch
The NOT OURS pot's first full year · the Time to Pay instalments until June · Jade's Instagram income (growing, and now on the table) · the 'when I go back' notebook · whether the new day rate holds