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head.
    ‘Can’t see …’, she keeps mumbling, ‘…the infernal dot .’
    (She has a dot, a black dot, right in the middle of her field of vision. I believe this phenomenon is fairly common with certain, particularly malicious brands of migraine.)
    I actually have to ransack her pockets to find her keys ( note: two different brands of ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ condom, a parking ticket, a lip salve, a gonk on an elasticated string, five hair-bands, a plastic fork, a lavender sachet, some cinnamon gum), as she sits on the doorstep, head back, mouth open, legs akimbo. Passers-by–I’m certain–think I’ve plied her sedate lunchtime glass of Pinot Grigio with the date rape drug (but it’s a good quality neighbourhood, so nobody actually bothers to make the time and the effort to stop and find out. Bless ’em).
    We negotiate the courtyard, some stairs, then the lift (she’s on the third floor), then an extremely long corridor, all without too much unnecessary drama. But when we finally make it to the flat itself (explain this , if you can) she keeps changing her mind about whether to go in or not (like it’s actually the wrong flat). We struggle through the door, into the hallway. I turn on the light. She gasps. I turn it off. She blinks a few times. Then she says, ‘No’, or, ‘Uh- uh ’ does a sharp about-turn and staggers outside again.
    We briefly reassess (‘This is your flat, isn’t it? Number Twenty-seven? I mean the key opens the lock…?’) and then we slowly re-enter (no light on this occasion) and then she pauses, blinks, turns, scarpers.
    By the third attempt I’m starting to get a little narky.
    ‘This is your flat, Aphra?’
    She nods an agonised yes . ‘So can we actually go in and stay in this time?’ She nods again, but seems profoundly brought down by the idea.
    ‘It’s not…’ She shakes her head, confused. ‘It’s not home , see?’
    She gazes up at me, poignantly, as if expecting some kind of profound emotional response on my part.
    Uh …
    Yeah, well, whatever .
    It’s not very big (the flat. My emotional response–I think we can pretty much take this as read–is not huge, either). There’s a tiny hall, two bedrooms (one en-suite), a tiny kitchen, a cloakroom, a lounge.
    I guide her into the main bedroom and sit her down on the bed. I go and close the curtains. I take off her shoes (fat square-toed, bottle-green slip-ons, with tall, wide heels and Prince-Charming buckles– eh ?). And above? Lord have mercy! Pop-socks! To the knee (quite nice knees, actually).
    ‘Lie down,’ I say.
    She lies down, groaning.
    I go and find the kitchen. I dig out a salad bowl (for her to vomit in) and find a glass and fill it up for her.
    I return to the bedroom. Aphra has (and I don’t quite know how) carefully removed the bottom half of her clothing. Skirt, pants, etc. (all folded up neatly and placed on a chair by the bed). But she’s left the pop-socks on, for some reason.
    Nice touch.
    Up top, she’s still in her smart but unremarkable French Connection shirt and boxy, denim jacket.
    She is asleep, her arms flung out (the two strange shoes I’ve just so painstakingly removed clutched lovingly– protectively –in each of her hands), her knees are pushed primly together, but the lower half of her legs (wah?) are at virtual right angles to each other (can that be comfortable? Is it even possible without detaching a ligament somewhere?).
    She looks like an abandoned marionette–tossed down, off-kilter–or a B-movie actress in some tacky film noir who’s been pushed from the top floor of a very tall tower block.
    Splat!
    Her skin shines bluely in the half-light. Her pubic bone (I sneak a closer look) is flattish. The hair is thick, tangled and dark. I put down the glass on her bedside table and place the bowl beside her, on the floor. Then I go into the en-suite and search for a flannel, but can’t find one, so yank a huge wodge of toilet paper off the roll instead (folding it