At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do.

I am still raw. I say I may be back. You know what lies are for. Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet.

Masks are the order of the day - and the least I can do is cultivate the illusion that I am gay, serene, not hollow and afraid.

I felt dull and flat and full of shattered visions.

I had always imagined myself hitching up on to my elbows on the delivery table after it was all over - dead white, of course, with no makeup and from the awful ordeal, but smiling and radiant, with my hair down to my waist, and reaching out for my first little squirmy child and saying its name, whatever it was.

At this rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day. Then I knew what the problem was. I needed experience. How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing?

Your room is not your prison. You are.