The curry curdled in my stomach. I wiped the layer of sweat that had formed on the back of my neck and unclicked the right. Lifted the lid. They were there as usual. The worst one on top. Your allocated corner the saviour. I took our card, still refusing to believe what I knew, and inserted it inside the book as I’d looked forward to doing all day. Ignoring the tiny bulge due to the pearl I’d kept safe inside the envelope. Then I placed it neatly next to your pen, comb and T-shirt. Before lifting them all out again to find our photograph, which must have slipped underneath one of the diaries. I extracted, disturbed. Moved everything around, rummaged. It wasn’t there.

‘Have you found one you fancy yet?’ His voice carried through the hall into my room, into my skull.

‘Sorry . . . I was just having a quick ciggie. I’m going now,’ I shouted back.

The wine and realization turned my legs to jelly as I negotiated the hallway to his room. Inside, I shut the door behind me. The anorak swung from the peg on the back with the motion. I didn’t know where to look, but began opening his drawers as quietly as possible, my head flicking constantly towards the door, aware he could come in at any second. In the first drawer, there was nothing of note, except a pair of my knickers among his boxers. The second held his T-shirts, nothing else. The third contained tangled wires, old remotes, defunct mobile phones, packs of cheap bulbs. I went to close it, thinking where else to try when I caught sight of a small black box right at the back. I lifted it out. Removed the lid. And it was like my suitcase. Filled with souvenirs. But different. I don’t know how, it just was.

There were cinema tickets of films we’d seen, another pair of my knickers that I didn’t even recognize, the lipstick I’d lost, other receipts for things I didn’t remember going to. And there it was. Our picture. Except you’d been cut off. And there were other photographs. Of me sleeping in my room. They were dark, grainy. Feeling nauseous, I lifted them out. Looked through them. And as I did, I noticed the tinge of a pink feather in the corner. And I realized that the person asleep wasn’t me.

‘You can come in now,’ he shouted. ‘Constance . . . you have to close your eyes until you get here.’

With shaking hands, I returned the box, shut the drawer and grabbed one of the DVDs next to the TV.

Walking through the hall, I kept my eyes open, my eyes that were now wide open, until I neared the kitchen. Then complied. Screwed them tight. Like my insides. Feeling my way through the door frame, sensing the change from light to dark.

‘OK . . . you can open them.’