First, the cheese, unwrapping the waxed paper like it’s the present I know it will be. Trainers up on to the table, I stretch, quiet dripping into my bones as grease coats the inside of my cheeks. Now for the chocolate and its sexy purple foil. Perfect oblongs, two chunks each, snap, snap, snap, fingers turning brown. The factory strip lights flash into my mind as the lamp on the balcony flickers. Can I be assured it will drive well? I need to be assured no one has ever driven it before. I rub at my head, sugar stinging my teeth as I flick on the telly, turning up the cymbals of the Nine News intro. From this angle, the presenters look perfect, all immaculate swirls of blush and hair. But I know that up close, all they look like is a pair of clowns, makeup and hairspray grease-paint thick. It’s just the right type of grooming for these particular cameras.

The apple crunches in my ears, lumps catching in my throat as I swallow. I wonder what Dominic’s doing now? Is he lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling, reliving everything we’d become in his head? Does he feel relieved, scared, or neither? Blank and empty, like there’s nothing inside him anymore? My tummy gurgles. It’s finally time, I think.

Standing, I reach for the empty bin in the corner, checking its liner is tightly wound around the wire rim before holding it between my legs to sit back down. My eyes travel the kinks of white plastic pooling at the bottom as I count slowly down from five. Mouth open, fingers in, and it takes less than thirty seconds to get it all out. I don’t even need to cough.

And there it is, all tumbled into the bottom of the bag, a solid scream from my deepest insides. It’s all out. Every last bit.

In one swift motion, I loosen the plastic liner, looping the end around my wrist. There’s a rubbish chute at the end of the balcony, by the lift. Flushing’s too good for this particular scream. I don’t want it washed clean. Filth like this could only ever be buried intact.

There’s a spring in my step as the door slams behind me.

38

Carly ~ Warchester ~ 1996

‘What’s your name?’ The glass separating us from the woman in the cubicle makes her face look dirty.

I mumble back at her, distracted. There’s a bowl of condoms on the other side of the glass next to her, separate bright plastic packets all jumbled together like sweets.

‘CARLY,’ Rachel shouts next to me. The clock ticking just above her head says we should totally be in maths. I rub my eyes.

‘Knackered, are you?’