My body feels like a city I have been defending vaguely, and selling off, piece by piece. I remember the first bra I wore – triangular and stiff – the first chunks of me portioned up into shapes to be sold. I was rainforest, razed for cattle. There’s a block of new luxury flats just behind my right ear. The boundaries of myself depress me because they are meaningless. I’m ravaged inside. I have been invaded by a Trojan horse full of Time.

After my bath I head downstairs. My mother is in the kitchen drinking her nightly eggnog that she swears by for strengthening her already strong voice (a green smoothie every morning to regenerate her liver). She sings a sudden line of Billy Joel and I am reminded of how she does this in her own kitchen – in our old kitchen – to ‘soften the atmosphere and dispel the spirits’.

‘Want one?’

I shake my head.

She pulls a box of melba toast out of the cupboard, extracts one piece and spreads it thinly with extra-light cream cheese. I watch her as I breathe.

‘Do you not have it up anywhere?’ she says. ‘That picture of you and the roses?’

‘No. It has nothing to do with me any more really, that.’

I don’t even know where it is. I think he must have taken it with him. It was his photo, after all. I was in it – or rather, my body was in it, but now I think if I saw it I’d feel more than I meant to.

‘How’s Art’s mum? What’s her name, Deborah? What does she think about it?’

‘We exchanged brief texts, all the best and whatnot, you know. I don’t really know. I feel like it’s not really my business any more, is it?’

My mother raises her eyebrows and bites her toast.

I ADORED