And now I must hurry. I wash again and dress. I choose a black and white wool dress with a small white collar, because Michael likes it, and there mightn’t be time to change before this evening. Then I run down to the grocer and the butcher. It is a great pleasure, buying food I will cook for Michael; a sensuous pleasure, like the act of cooking itself. I imagine the meat in its coat of crumbs and egg; the mushrooms, simmering in sour cream and onions, the clear strong, amber-coloured soup. Imagining it I create the meal, the movements I will use, checking ingredients, heat, textures. I take the provisions up and put them on the table; then I remember the veal must be beaten and I must do it now, because later it will wake Janet. So I beat the veal flat and fold the tissues of meat in paper and leave them. It is now nine o’clock. I’m short of money so I must go by bus, not taxi. I have fifteen minutes in hand. I hastily sweep the room and make the bed, changing the undersheet which is stained from last night. As I push the stained sheet into the linen-basket I notice a stain of blood. But surely it’s not time yet for my period? I hastily check dates, and realize yes, it’s today. Suddenly I feel tired and irritable, because these feelings accompany my periods. (I wondered if it would be better not to choose today to write down everything I felt; then decided to go ahead. It was not planned; I had forgotten about the period. I decided that the instinctive feeling of shame and modesty was dishonest: no emotion for a writer.) I stuff my vagina with the tampon of cotton wool, and am already on my way downstairs, when I remember I’ve forgotten to take a supply of tampons with me. I am late. I roll tampons into my handbag, concealing them under a handkerchief, feeling more and more irritable. At the same time I am telling myself that if I had not noticed my period had started, I would not be feeling nearly so irritable. But all the same, I must control myself now, before leaving for work, or I’ll find myself cracking into bad-temper in the office. I might as well take a taxi after all — that way I’ll have ten minutes in hand. I sit down and try to relax in the big chair. But I am too tense. I look for ways to relax tension. There are half a dozen pots of creeper on the window sill, a greenish-grey wandering plant I don’t know the name of. I take the six earthenware pots to the kitchen and submerge them, one after another, in a basin of water, watching the bubbles rise as the water sinks down and drives up the air. The leaves sparkle with water. The dark earth smells of damp growth. I feel better. I put the pots of growth back on the window sill where they can catch the sun, if there is any. Then I snatch up my coat and run downstairs, passing Molly, sleepy in her housecoat. ‘What are you in such a hurry for?’ she asks; and I shout back: ‘I’m late,’ hearing the contrast between her loud, lazy unhurried voice, and mine, tense. There isn’t a taxi before I reach the bus-stop, and a bus comes along so I get on, just as the rain comes down.