‘It’s this place. It reminds me. All them psychiatrics at the hospital. I had to see four of them. Like a bloody judge and jury, trying to persuade me to have it. I can’t have it. I’ve got two already.’

Rachaela listened, her eyes on the wooden floor. To one who had travelled before her.

‘Well, you got rid of it, Lyn,’ said the unfriendly friend.

‘It was a struggle. And then the way they treat you. And the pain. Christ, I thought it would be all right. I’ve never been right since. You know I ain’t. I couldn’t bear him near me after.’

That was psychological. They told you it was.’

‘No it weren’t. They done something to me, the clumsy buggers. They treat you like shit when you go in for it.’

The yellow door opened and a slim, fat-faced young girl came out, looking satisfied.

The god emerged again and went to the desk. He gave instructions and vanished once more.

‘Miss Garland,’ sang out the woman in lilac, and the frog princess, sucking her sweet without fear, went forward and inside the door.

The Defarge woman dropped a stitch and cursed.

‘I’m going outside for a fag,’ said the purple girl. She got up and left the hall.

A new picture. Probes for the body and others probing at the mind. The team of psychiatrists, trying to delve the reasons of the would-be terminator. Would it be enough to be afraid? No. The dream she had had, lying on the beach and the sea coming in, split open and fire running out of her guts, that would not be enough.

Of course, they would not make it simple. It must not be easy. She bore a life. She could not merely flush her body like a toilet bowl.

The girl next up from Lyn’s friend was discussing food. ‘A nice cut of steak and fry it up with onions. I could give him that every night. It’s no good me saying, Tony, it’s bad for you. You’ll get a heart attack. And try giving him salad. Chips with everything. Our ceiling’s black from frying chips. Running with grease. He makes me sick.’

She had done the favour for Rachaela.

Rachaela rose and walked quickly out of the hall.

Outside the night came thankfully cold, a smell of external houses and open street. The glare of the nauseous streetlights which made the world faceless and colourless.

The purple girl, now in black, stood by the fence smoking greedily. She glanced at Rachaela and away.

It was not possible to ask her questions. In any case, everything was now revealed. A difficult business. A humiliating struggling business. Ending in harsh treatment and pain, and a lingering scar.