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was worse than the stroke, it seemed even more casual, vicious and sickening. It carried a humiliation that the illness, for all its disfigurement and incapacity, had never conferred. Last Friday, following her hospital discharge, she had gone shopping. She was coming out of Harrod’s with a new, morale-boosting outfit one size down from what had become her usual. Then, from the window of the taxi on the way home, she saw Perky, right there in a busy Kensington street. She had the taxi slow down and she got out to pursue him, deciding that it might be jolly good fun to follow her beloved Perks.
    It started to seem less good fun as she saw him vanish into a small flat. Rebecca’s heart sank, as she immediately suspected another woman. She went home under the darkest of clouds and fought the desperate urge to cram her face with food until her stomach was at bursting point. Then, the urge passed and she couldn’t have eaten had she been force-fed. All she wanted to do was to know.
    After this, she followed Perky many times, but he always went to the flat alone. Rebecca spent ages watching to see if anyone else was coming and going. It seemed to be unoccupied. Eventually, she went to the door and rang the bell. Nobody answered. Every subsequent time she tried it, nobody was home. She confided in Lorraine, who came over to tea at her request. It was Lorraine who suggested she look through his pockets to see if there was a key. There was, and Rebecca had it copied. Going there alone, she found a small studio flat. Inside, the place was a library of pornography: magazines, video tapes and, most ominously, a video camera on a tripod positioned over a bed that – along with the television set and the racks of books, magazines and tapes – dominated the room.
    She was now sitting there alone, glancing at this one,
Feisty Feminist Fist-Fuckers
. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the video tapes, especially the home-made ones. They each had the name of a different woman, written on a label on the spine. They were whores’ names, she thought bitterly: Candy, Jade, Cindy, and the like. She felt the side of her face again. It didn’t burn but it was wet. She dropped Perky’s copy of
Feisty Feminist Fist-Fuckers
on the floor.
    Something told her to do her breathing exercises. She started with forced, laboured, deep breaths, punctuated by sobs, but eventually found a rhythm. Then she coldly said out loud: – The
bastard
.
    A strange, frozen calm came over her as she continued to compulsively explore the flat. Then she discovered something which proved to be the worst find of all. It was a large box-folder which contained various financial statements, cash receipts and invoices. Rebecca found herself shaking. She needed to be with someone. The only person she could think of was Lorraine. She dialled the number and her young former nurse, and now friend, answered, – Please come, Rebecca said softly to her, – please come.
    Lorraine had just come off a shift and was going to bed. It had been a good one at the club last night and she was suffering, but when she heard Rebecca’s voice on the other end of the line she threw on some casual clothes and jumped in a taxi to Kensington. She had never heard such pain and desperation in a human voice before.
    Lorraine met Rebecca in a wine bar which was by the tube station and round the corner from the flat. She could see that something terrible had happened.
    – I’ve been betrayed, deeply betrayed, she said in a cold, trembling voice. – I’ve been paying for him to … it’s all been a lie, Lorraine … it’s all been a fucking
lie
! she sobbed.
    It fazed Lorraine to see Rebecca like this. It wasn’t her: she was no longer the eccentric, by turns engaging and irritating woman she knew in the hospital. She seemed vulnerable and real. This woman was a troubled sister, not a dotty aunt.
    – What am I going to do … she cried to Lorraine.
    Lorraine looked her in the eye. –