‘I haven’t done any thinking in three weeks,’ she said to her boyfriend. She was looking at the model for the set of his play, the small, vivid world pulled from his imagination. It was bare wooden slats with a light-box to reflect shadows ominously on the walls.

‘Thinking is not the thing,’ he said, ‘artistic impulse is the thing.’

The opening night of his play, in the student theatre, she sat, waiting, in the lobby, peeling an orange. She plopped bits of fruit into her mouth. The material of her dress was a fine silk. She savoured the juice of the fruit. She took her seat.

As soon as the female puppet appeared on stage, her eyes huge and innocent, as if she was just born in that moment, Lucy knew what was going to happen. She pulled her hair over her face. She rummaged urgently in her handbag for her cotton wool but before she got it in her ears, she heard the first line of the puppet’s monologue.

It was too late, too early, too late.

She sat in the dark of the theatre, and watched the action like it was a silent movie. The puppet didn’t scream but lay there, maggots crawling around her, shadows dancing on the walls baring their teeth and claws. Despite Lucy’s distress, she knew her entire life had been leading to this moment, watching it again except this time as a witness. She felt like it had never stopped happening, that somewhere it was always happening and here, finally, was the proof. She couldn’t hear the words onstage but she knew they were wrong. That’s not how it was, she wanted to say. She gripped the sides of her seat, tore into the armrests as if they were the skin of a fruit.

As the puppet swallowed the abortion pills, fake blood pooling around its body, her face broke apart, the planes separating. The blood was made out of a lumpy, carpet-like substance and appeared when her boyfriend pulled a string. When the puppet was finished, its body slumped on a chair, the lights down, Lucy covered her ears with her hands. She knew people wouldn’t clap for that. Nobody would clap for that.

Around her, people got to their feet and put their hands together, and she felt a long trail of urine move down her leg. How could you have done it? How could you? It was exactly like the first time, the illusion was gone, she knew again what the world was capable of. She could no longer be the person she had been.

Outside the theatre, a woman asked Lucy if she was alright.

‘That was brave, politically,’ the woman said, shaking her curls. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m cold,’ Lucy said, ‘I’m very cold. Was it always this cold?’

‘Sweetheart, you’re not wearing a coat. It’s October.’

Lucy laughed. ‘I haven’t worn a coat in months.’ She paused. ‘Can I have yours?’

‘My coat?’

‘Yes, I need it.’