In the morning I got out of bed, and went to get milk and toast. Downstairs in the kitchen were several plates with food from the day before that Carral clearly hadn’t touched. She didn’t want breakfast either.

‘But you haven’t eaten anything at all,’ I whispered.

‘I’m full.’

‘Full of what?’

‘I’m just full-up.’

She was right. Her stomach bulged. Her whole body had swelled in those few hours, and when I snuggled up next to her I could feel how she felt. From her ears I could hear a soft rushing sound, as if from a conch shell. If I closed my eyes, I could hear the house creak and it swayed as though we were at sea. And later in the afternoon, it was as if we were in the sea and carried the house inside us. In my dreams I could feel metal push against my throat and I imagined that I had swallowed the railing, the taps, the window handles, every piece of furniture in the house.

‘Tonight, when you feel better, we’ll get drunk,’ I said.

Carral opened her eyes tentatively and let out a low giggle. ‘That’ll be nice.’

Then I stroked her arms, her thighs, her belly. Together we filled each other to the brim and lay there slumped in an all-consuming doze, like gorged snakes digesting their prey.

Pym

Pym

THAT NIGHT CARRAL seemed a lot better. Outside, the weather was unusually mild, and we sat on the roof terrace for a while, eating crackers and brie and drinking cheap wine from a carton. For every glass I had, Carral had three, and after a while she was pretty drunk and swayed by the TV antenna like the captain on a pirate ship. Behind her Aybourne was a sea of low houses, already in shadow, waves breaking in crests of electric light. She called me over and put her arm around my shoulders, began a sort of wobbly dance and spilt what remained of the wine in her glass. Suddenly we heard a knocking coming from down in the flat. Carral lifted her arm, as if she was conducting an orchestra, signalled for the movement of bodies, wine and clouds to stop, and declared:

‘I think we’ve got company.’

We heard several more knocks. I caught her arm.

‘I don’t want company.’

‘Little Jo, it’s probably just the neighbour.’

‘I don’t think anyone should see us like this.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s dirty here. And we look weird.’

‘We are wine, we are cheese, we are crackers.’

‘Carral.’

‘Come on. You might like him,’ she said and looked at me, blinking a few times.

She climbed lurchingly down the ladder humming to herself. Her feet landed heavily on each rung and over the kitchen floor. Her steps were different, clear and heavy, like my steps.