On the way back down the hallway she fixes her dress.

Flora looks into his empty bedroom. There are so many pairs of men’s shoes. All lined up. Suits neatly hung. It looks like a fancy shop changing room, not someone’s home. The vanity is covered in debris. All his furniture is stained green. Her hips move. It’s jazz riffs. Need to dance! Glasses clink! Move down the hallway back into the lounge. She is more than buzzing. The last seven bumps definitely were not necessary. It’s a fine line between sparkle and psychosis. She’s tipping.

– Can ye lock the front door, doll?

– Aye, why?

– I just had to pass some neighbours in that stair, I got dressed before I came – it was, just a time thing, I’m sorry!

Flora double-locks the front door. The doppelgänger of Josephine Baker but far taller and even more lithe takes off her coat and is absorbed by a group of women hugging her and cooing over her figure and her clothes. The gramophone cranks up louder. A girl is doing a striptease on the kitchen table. She swivels her hips. Turns to show a real pony tail high up on her arse. A man in a top hat puts a bit in her mouth. An armchair is writhing with arms and legs – a sexual octopus of subversion. Flora can hear Greig arguing with somebody.

– MacDiarmid is a genius!

– Away and shite.

– Yer away wi the fairies, Paul – he is the best writer in the country!

– Nobody wants tae read writing in Scottish, Greig! Get a fucking grip ay yersel!

– Whit about Burns then?

– Tepid. A complete pig as well.

– Well, MacDiarmid is ahead of his time, I quote him like this: ‘the Scots vernacular is a vast storehouse of just the very peculiar and subtle effects which modern European literature in general is assiduously seeking… it is an inchoate Marcel Proust, a Dostoevskian debris of ideas – an inexhaustible quarry of subtle and significant sound.’ Stick that in yer pipe uhn double-drag it ya fucking prick! Come on! Then he writes Sangschaw! Fucking ay! Don’t tell me he doesnae ken exactly what he is talking about.

– Are you quoting me?

– The man himself, Chris, I didnae see you there!

Her ex-lover’s voice has so much tinkle when he sees the writer that the chandelier grows visibly depressed. The writer moves right on of course. Instantly bored. Girls in flapper dresses mix Tom Collinses, bras stuffed to the tip. Greig is behind her then, she feels his breath on her neck before he touches her waist lightly.

– Flora.

– Hello, Greig.

– Are you enjoying yourself?

– No. I should have known all the writers would be here. The literati only ever come here to feel bohemian, you know that!

– Always so harsh, Flora. They come to have fun.