‘Strength of dark,

Strength of light,

Give me power beyond my sight.’

The words become a loop of sound against the slap of the knife that echoes in the bath. After some time, she becomes aware of a gentle knocking against the door.

‘Out in a minute,’ she says. Lauren runs the cold tap slowly, so the water creeps to meet her toes. She holds the knife under and watches the water cascade off the metal. As icy water slides under the soles of her feet and up to the edge of her jeans, she hears Ann-Marie creak away outside. She closes the knife and lays it ceremoniously on the side of the bath. Taking a few more breaths she splashes the tap water over her swollen eyes and mouth, pressing her fingers against her eye sockets and lips. Her clothes get splashed, but she doesn’t care. She gets up and looks at herself, expressionless in the mirror, measuring how still she can make herself, how unblinking, how cold.

The dripping is getting faster; the pipes rumble within the walls. There is a clear full moon shining into the room, a reminder that things will change. On the dresser is a bottle labelled crème de corps. She wants to try some on her forearm, but has to hit the end of the bottle, like ketchup.

On one wall in the bathroom is a photo collage behind glass. She didn’t notice it earlier when she was angry. There are pictures of Malcolm, Ann-Marie’s father, when he had more hair, holding Ann-Marie and her brother Fraser’s hands on a skiing holiday. He is a surgeon and Lauren hardly ever sees him. Angela looks very similar in the pictures to the way she looks now, but thinner and with bigger glasses. Lauren’s eyes move between pictures: puffball dresses, white birthday cakes, Siamese cats, Christmas lights, banana-boat rides. Ann-Marie and Fraser grinning in a rubber dinghy with four of their cousins, all with short dark hair and orange lifejackets. In one photo, Ann-Marie is a little girl standing next to a grown-up girl, who is smiling broadly with sunglasses. A bit more grown up perhaps than Ann-Marie now, and with glowing, henna-red hair. She is smiling, in an indigo tie-dye dress. Lauren looks at it again. The faces are tiny, and the film is over-exposed, but Lauren is drawn to it, squinting.