He looks around him. The aesthetic goes with the architecture: tidy, vacuumed and polished, matching furniture in orange-coloured wood, plump cushions in pretty colours, shagpile rugs. A cut-glass fruit bowl (circa 1970) filled with gerbera heads and floating candles graces the glass-topped table to his left. There’s a faint smell that might be air freshener.

Your flat looks nice, he says. Nicer than mine.

Heroin, best career move I ever made.

He finds a lighter in the tin. You signing on?

Don’t have to any more. I’ve got a line.

Oh yeah? What sort of a line?

Ha ha. What do you want to drink?

Whisky.

With an e or without?

Um, without.

She opens a cabinet, gets out tumblers and a bottle, pours and hands him one. What was the private view anyway?

Site-specific at Bold Tendencies.

Oh yeah I know it. Rye Lane car park.

That’s the one.

She rolls her eyes. I can remember when SLG was a shithole.

Still is.

So how was it, the show?

All very chi-chi.

Isn’t it?

I never knew Peckham had so many white people.

I think they bus them in. She stubs out her cigarette, walks over and takes the tin from him, holds up the hash.

He nods.

She goes back to her chair and lays out papers for a joint. Come to Wimbledon with me?

No.

Centre Court. First Friday.

How come?

Ran into my old boss. Told him I was having chemo. He offered me the pair.

You’re not though – are you?

No but, you know, same ballpark. I look like shit anyway. She looks up. Feel free to, you know, deny it.

He narrows his eyes a little and smiles.

You look exactly the same, she says. And then she looks down, turns her attention to the joint.

He flashes up an image of her, sitting in the bath (pink bath), bare light bulb, damp pink bathmat, him – sober, fully clothed, having run over from work when she called – kneeling on the floor, black jeans, black shirt, sleeves rolled up, arms in the bath, the water hot, then cooling, trying to help her find a line. His hands white, knuckles and wrist bone prominent – there was a ring on his finger then, silver. The flesh of his fingertips getting wrinkly after a while. Her flesh magnified by the bathwater, but she always had a surprising amount of flesh packed under her clothes. It surprised him every time. Always quite clean, even when she was using. Although if you have baths every day.

They found one eventually, in her thigh. He pushed the needle in. And then holding her up, supporting her head to make sure she didn’t drown, his shirt getting soaked – no point rolling those sleeves. Damp patches on the knees of his jeans. He pulled the plug. Watched the water drain away while she sat there shivering.