His voice became distant, or maybe he’d stopped talking. It felt quiet, then suddenly it was like watching frames of a film inside my head – or were they pieces of a mosaic? That was it: a mosaic or a jigsaw puzzle. I could see images from my life, people I knew so well, all there from different times, but I was seeing them all at the same time. My life streaming back, moving but not moving. Odd but not scary. Yes, I was looking at a mosaic made up of pieces of my life. I felt overjoyed; there were all my pets going back in time: Boris, Casper, Jack, the cats Smokey and Samantha. Friends were there, too, they had their own colours; each person was on a different piece of the mosaic. Marcia’s was autumnal, reds, browns and oranges; Heather was in vibrant greens; Pete was blue. Old friends: Jane, Greta, Carol, Rosie. I could see friends I’d known but had lost touch with over the years: Bernie, Fran, Jean, Annie. In one mosaic piece, I saw a scene from my life. I was in Harrods with Marcia, up on high stools, drinking hot chocolate. In another, at a wedding with Heather, talking to her friends. In a car with my brother Matthew, him driving so fast, my foot on an imaginary brake. Back, back. It was a moving mosaic, beautiful; vibrant, as if lit from within. There was Marcia at school in sixth form. Another segment shows us on the bus, on a back seat with a bag of Liquorice Allsorts. We’re laughing until it hurt.

‘Where are you, Bea?’

‘Remembering friends. Time is moving back but also standing still. I can see everyone I know, all at once, like they’re in a living mosaic.’ At dinner with Richard, in bed with Jon, bicycling with Graham, singing with Michael: they were all there; all my past lovers in a jigsaw made from mosaic pieces. Was a piece missing? Where was it? Or was I imagining a gap? Oh, there’s my brother, I’m studying in Central Library with him. And Sam, stoned again, headphones on, crashed out on the sofa. I wanted to laugh. Some of the mosaics were so perfect, a tiny embodiment of a moment. Bruno. Jim. Andrew. Everyone was there.