Ah, yes. John Lewis delivered – what was it? Something necessary and not very exciting. (The next delivery will be of coat-hangers, I have finally decided that it’s not very chic to keep my best clothes on rather run-down plastic-coated wire hangers that we got from the dry cleaner in the early ‘80s in Hong Kong – not chic, because they ruin my clothes).

So, where did I finish last time. Ah. I found myself sailing away on bat-wings of rapture and then –

There was a hammering at the windows of the castle. I sprang up, drooling with frustration, ran to see what was wrong. Albert and Liza were already there. It was daylight, we thought, who should be calling at this hour but some Mob who had somehow managed to fly up – had they hired a helicopter to invade the sacred technology-free spaces of Sanguinarian air?

No, there was a sudden eclipse, plunging the country into the deepest darkness; and in it had appeared Rupert, the captain of vampire guard who was holding Bloodlouse in the tower twenty miles away. He had come to tell me that Bloodlouse had escaped into the brief night of the eclipse. I knew my spouse was doomed. This was no great loss, since Rudolf was so much preferable, so I invited Rupert in. There was a glint in the captain’s bloodshot eye, a glint of wickedness, that lit in me a spark of deepest red fire – always I had been attracted to the trustworthy and the tender, but now, alas, I was about to be ravished by the evil and unreliable. I knew, just from the look on his face, that he would betray me, just as I was about to betray the lovely Rudolf – but oh, the time in between –

(the manuscript is broken off at this point, singed and irregular at the edges)