I don’t remember getting home, dodging through the people and the traffic, along Bleecker and across the Avenue of the Americas, but I eventually found myself on my doorstep. My eyes were not focusing and my hands were shaking. I sat down on the step and emptied my bag out onto the ground beside me, hoping to find my key. I put my head in my hands and began to cry. Like a romantic fool I sat hunched on the step and wept; tears spread out from under my hands and over my chin. I tasted the salt in my mouth, the collar of my shirt was wet, my nose ran slime. That was too much. I groped on the ground beside me for a tissue. I had no luck, but at least I found my keys. I wiped my face on my sleeve, shoved my rubbish back into my bag and stood up.

That was when a savage pain in my back suddenly assaulted me and I had to hold onto the railing for a moment before I was able to move. I could hear the telephone in my bedroom ringing. I was glad I wasn’t there to answer it. After a few minutes the pain eased and I went into the house. The telephone was still ringing as I let myself in the door of my apartment. I hobbled across the room and picked up the receiver.

‘Fuck off!’ I yelled into it, hoping to burst his eardrum. I slammed the receiver down again and pulled the plug out of the wall. I went into the bathroom and washed my face. I looked horrible both before and after washing. In the cabinet over the basin was a box of Neurofen, unopened; I was not a pill popper and had just brought it with me in case of emergencies. This seemed to me to be an emergency. I took four. I was not contemplating suicide, merely oblivion for a while. I drank a glass of water and went and lay down fully dressed on my bed.

I wanted my mother.

They both surprised each other.

She had taken from her press a dark cinnamon skirt and long jacket that she had bought in New York and hung them on the back of her door to give them an airing, also in the hope that the creases would disappear without her having to iron them.

I have so many hideous lumps and bumps, she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror after her bath, all nowadays in the wrong places, all strange colours, all pretty bloody unattractive. But what does it matter? This is not a date you’re going on. It’s just dinner with a passing acquaintance. A very passing acquaintance, in fact almost past.

She put a lot of eye make-up on and painted her mouth dark red. ‘OK, Queen of the Vampires.’ She grinned at herself in the glass, damped the large gold watch round her wrist and went to look for Lar.