I have to stand on one of the kitchen chairs to reach it, and even then it’s a stretch. There are arrows on the alarm: a clockwise turn should release the cover. As close as I now am to the source, my ears are actually hurting. I can’t believe Carrie isn’t downstairs by now; surely nobody could sleep through this? I’m straining to turn the cover and at last I feel it give and come away in my hands, and as it does so, I’m suddenly aware of an undertone of buzzing and then—dear God—it’s raining flies down on me, angry fat black bodies falling on my face, in my hair, buzzing round my neck, down inside my dressing gown, dropping onto my feet, their petroleum-swirl blue-black bodies bristling with fury as they taint me with their germs with every contact. I’ve dropped the cover and I’m scrubbing frantically at my face and hair in a cloud of the insects, almost toppling off the chair as I bat them away. In a panic, I drop down to the floor and feel some bodies squelch beneath one bare foot; I can feel myself start to retch as I tip my head upside down and rake my hands through my hair, even as I become aware that the awful din has stopped and that the sound I can now hear is my own shrieking. With an effort, I cut it off, only for the shrieking to be replaced by whimpering, then I run out of the kitchen and straight up the stairs to the full-length mirror in my bathroom.

There are carcasses of dead flies on the shoulders of my dressing gown; there are dead flies still caught in my hair. There’s an acrid taste of bile in my mouth as I grab a hairbrush and furiously drag it through my hair while simultaneously stripping off the dressing gown. I’m almost crying with revulsion now, naked and shivering with the dressing gown discarded at my feet among a scattering of the lifeless black flies. One vile creature is still moving on the white porcelain of the bathroom sink, slowly and dully, as if unsure if it’s worth the effort. I grab the bottle of hand soap and use it to squash the fly mercilessly, then hurl the bottle at the bin in the corner. It misses, clattering loudly off the rim. The noise comes as another jolt.

I need to calm down.