This wasn’t a hangover, this was an existential eviction.

Groaning, she levered herself up to walk into the living room. Well, not walk so much as endure a series of controlled system collapses. Holding the wall helped. Bette’s sheepskin coat was on the couch. On the coffee table, a pitcher of water, a glass, a packet of Advil, her phone and a note.

Had to go to hospital. All ok. JD with Angie. Tx

‘Hospal?’ 

With the energy saved on a syllable, she gulped down the water and the pills, retched, held her stomach with both hands to steady it.

‘Fuck.’

She squinted at the floor. A blindingly bright block of sunlight on the stripped wood glowed like a portal she could jump into and emerge in another dimension. Tears came, then. Partly for just how shite she felt in her poor, poisoned body; but also for everything she’d lost. 

Her phone pulsed. The lockscreen was a slew of alerts: Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, texts, missed calls. She’d drop it in the pitcher, but that would mean moving.

‘Start again,’ she said, her voice sounding like an outtake from the Exorcist. Then she keeled sideways and waited for death.

***

Bette got back with a diagnosis of bacterial conjunctivitis. The treatment was antibiotics (oral and drops), boiled-water rinses, Advil and cold compresses for the pain. Oh, also a dressing over the entire eye.

‘Ahoy, matey!’ said Helena when she saw Bette climbing carefully out of the Land Rover. ‘Are you ship-shape?’

‘Fuck off,’ said Bette.

‘It’s a look, isn’t it?’ said Tina, with an impish smile.

‘I should say it is,’ said Helena. ‘Poor lamb. How are you feeling?’

‘Idiotic,’ snapped Bette. 

That was lunchtime; from there, her mood worsened. It was impossible to do normal things, in a normal way, at normal speed, with one eye. After the third near-miss with a doorframe and a very badly failed attempt to pour a glass of water, she gave up, took her pills and went for a nap that turned into a six-hour sleep. When she woke up, it was dark. 

She pulled on yoga pants and a tee-shirt, and went to the top of the stairs. But there she paused, partly out of disorientation but also because she was seized, suddenly, by a tableau, by ordinary beauty right there in the great room of House 2.