I hear his shoes stopping outside the door, silently observing, thinking, folding in on themselves and turning around, going on their way and leaving me on my own. My bed has never been so big or so depressed; it’s never been so deep and wickedly comforting. I can already feel his skin brushing mine, his tears mingling with mine, and it’s only a sensation, yes, a sensation, because nothing of anything that happens, nothing, absolutely nothing is real. He’s writing something, bent over the desk with his eyes drowning in his heart. I feel like a tiny ant, lying on that big, terrible bed. I wish I were even smaller and transparent. I wish he could squash me once and for all. I breathlessly seek warmth from a strip of duvet; my fingertips sense that it’s crumbling away and nothing is left. My body is just a piece of bloodless flesh, thrown into a refrigerated cell, waiting for someone to buy it and cook it and eat it and do with it what he will. My body alone exists and it’s a fictitious one.

The mattress yields to support a weight and I pretend I haven’t felt a thing.

Two blue eyes like yours look at me and smile at me. I whisper, “Mum,” but she shakes her head and smiles sweetly at me.

“You’ve got to go,” she says. “You’ve got to leave and you’ve got to understand.”

I pretend I haven’t heard anything.

“Look at me,” she cries, shaking me, “look into my eyes.”

I look at her and there are words inside. At first they’re confused scribbles dripping with ink; then gradually the letters assume a concrete form and fit together into phrases. It’s a letter. It looks like a woman’s handwriting, young, showy writing. There’s an incredible vitality in the os and the as that inflates the letters like balloons.

The letter says:

Dear Melissa,

I’m a fan of yours. I know I’m one of many, but I hope you’ll read this letter, or perhaps you’ll even reply, who knows.

The story you told is not my story, it doesn’t belong to me. My life is different from yours, I’ve had different experiences, perhaps I’ve made bad choices, but at least they’re mine and no one else’s.

And yet, dear Melissa, I feel a kind of contact with you. It’s as though there were a rope pulling us tightly together. There is a connection, I’ve worked that out, and I hope you won’t think me arrogant or anything like that. I just wanted to tell you what I think. It’s something very powerful, I can’t explain it.

Yours,

Penelope

PS: I’m sending you a photograph. I think it’s important to give a face to someone hiding behind words.

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