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.
Ongoing
Best month on record in September. The tax bill's shadow lengthens toward January. These two facts have not yet been introduced to each other.
Threads to watch
Their first episode is coming — the January tax bill, the buffer pot Marcus doesn't have, and an income-smoother tool built for exactly this. Jade's Instagram side income · the 'when I go back' notebook