"I went out with a guy for a year until I found out he’d killed his wife. He told me so himself. He’d done it with a knife ten years earlier and he’d been in jail. I couldn’t bear to hear another word. I passed him his jacket, accompanied him to the door, he opened it and left. I went to bed with my clothes on. That morning I’d changed the sheets for him. The pillowcase smelled of fabric conditioner and I was almost overpowered by the scent of the flower-patterned sheets and the floral designs of the shirt and trousers I hadn’t taken off. The smell of the garlands on the bedside lampshade, the smell of the borders round the walls, the bunches of flowers on the curtains, the wreaths on the tiled floor; I sleep on a cloud of petals. It’s as if it was me who was dead."