Every breath is full of knives. Every breath brings stars and paisley patterns and the terror. I can’t stand it. Cold hands – so cold – they might as well be the devil, moving me about, twisting the blades. Arthur, she says. But I’m so full of holes. So cold my hairs stand up and they hang me from the ceiling by the hairs on my arms, my chest, my legs. Pulling skin. Those hands – the buggering bloody piss-pot fuckers. Pulling at me, pressing all the bruises, punching again and again, straight in the bladder.

And then the peace. As sudden as rain, the peace floods in. Floating back down to the bed. The softness, the lifting. I love the hands that do this. So sacred I don’t even open my eyes. They’re sealed. The kindness is everywhere.

And I can go to the Field Day after all. May behind the tea stall. The dirty canvas of the tent going dap-dap-dap in the rain and the crowd of people and someone running, knocking over the teacup and the bounce of the china on the soggy ground and my mates saying ‘Come on Arthur, it’s all bobbins, there’s nowt ’ere’. May behind the trestle table talking to her mother, frowning, arms folded and a space opening up. Walking over to pick up the cup and her legs under the table, her legs in stockings, and the wind catching her skirt. Banging my head on the table and her laugh, her eyebrows. She takes the cup and her fingers – her fingers! But the music is wrong, the music is always wrong, and the voices are from somewhere else. My mouth as dry as sand. There are hands on me and the warmth again, the relief, the lifting.