I was drawn into the warmth and struggled with my thoughts. Touched strings that wouldn’t stop vibrating but all the same my brain was ticking over. Busily at work as ever. It hardly ever took a break. Now it was thinking about father and also about a child.

We started kissing again. That night we kissed so much that the unpractised skin of our lips opened up in sores and then we kissed still more. And his sex and mine. Chafed and painful but drawing new strength from saliva and body fluids from overflowing wells.

We slept afterwards or did we I don’t remember. In our sleep if there was any his body was so close warm and sweaty that I lost all sense of who was I or you.

I would remember that night. Take it out to hold like a fragile fabergé egg.

You and I he said. A binary weapon.

34

SIX

It grew lighter. I didn’t need to check the time to know it was four o’clock. The tapeworm was hungry and I crawled gently out of bed not to disturb the sleeping man. I stood there for a while looking at the black curls on the pillow as if at the image of an angel. One image of many. Casual contacts that came and went without names and faces.

A bathroom had been wedged in under the stairs. I found a tshirt to use as a nightdress. Sat down on the black bakelite ring and tried to collect my thoughts but didn’t get very far. The tapeworm kept up lowlevel gnawing however hard I tried to focus on neutral things like cleansingsoap colgate stomatol almawin cleaningfluid shavingfoam and timotei shampoo.

Peeing was sore. It hurt between my legs and my entire pelvis ached. Cautiously so it wouldn’t make a sound I opened the bathroom cabinet to find out what a man like john might want to keep out of sight but it was a disappointment. No jostling of products on the shelves no thrilling medicines or exclusive women’s perfumes. Just a solitary bottle of oldspice a packet of toothbrushes from the coop and a barber’s razor with a motherofpearl handle. The bathroom could do with a really thorough clean. My fingers were itching to start but the outdated black floor tiles were freezing and I longed to be back in the warm bed.