‘Hi,’ I said, kissing her as I sat down. I nodded at her glass. ‘Tonic water? I thought you said you wanted a drink?’

‘There’s gin in it,’ she said grimly. ‘Though I shouldn’t be drinking alcohol at all.’

I acted the innocent. ‘Why not?’

‘Alcohol is one of the most fattening things there is.’

‘Yes, I know that. So why shouldn’t you be drinking it?’

She didn’t smile. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a couple of magazines. One was called Your Diet, with a picture of a smiling housewife and a pineapple on the cover. The other was called Flesh, which, from the picture of a half-naked woman with the largest breasts and the biggest chins I’d ever seen and the tagline (‘For men who know that big is beautiful!’) was clearly a porn mag for those who appreciate the larger woman.

‘Where did you get these?’ I asked.

‘They were sent to me.’

‘What?’

‘Somebody sent them to me at work. They were waiting in my in-tray, in a brown envelope with my name typed on the front. I thought it was just going to be an unsolicited submission from an author. Some of them have my name because sometimes Pernilla gets me to pp the rejection letters. So my in-tray is usually overflowing with thick A4 envelopes. I couldn’t believe it when I opened it and found these inside.’

I picked up Flesh and leafed through it. The women inside were enormous, rolls of flab covering the part of the anatomy that most blokes buy porn mags to look at. It was mind-boggling really, thinking that some men must find this stuff a turn-on. Still, it’s less harmful than a lot of the shit out there.

It wasn’t harmless as far as Emily was concerned, though. I turned to her and saw that her eyes had filled with tears. ‘Somebody’s trying to send me a message – tell me I’m fat. That I need to go on a diet – or I’ll end up like one of these disgusting pigs.’

I couldn’t stop staring at the magazine. Eventually, Emily snatched it away and stuffed both the magazines back into her bag.

‘Was there a note with it?’ I asked.

‘No, nothing. I guess the magazines delivered the message well enough on their own.’

Suddenly, I felt angry. I didn’t know who had sent these stupid mags to my Emily, but I knew that I wanted to hurt them, to get back at them for the pain I could see on Emily’s face.

‘Who the hell would do this?’ I said.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Somebody in your office? Have you got any enemies there?’

She looked at me, mouth open. ‘What do you mean, enemies? Why would I have enemies at work?’

I didn’t reply, just thought about my own former workplace, and the porn sites to which I had subscribed my old boss. I felt sick.

‘Pernilla said the magazines were probably sent in by an aggrieved author – someone we’d turned down. But maybe people do hate me at work,’ Emily said, staring into the distance. ‘Maybe they all got together and sent me these, hoping to drive me out. Get rid of the unsightly fat girl.’ Her lower lip was starting to tremble.

I put my arm around her. ‘Emily, you’re not fat. And of course they don’t hate you at work.’

‘I am fat.’

‘You’re not.’

‘I am.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re beautiful.’ I could feel tears welling up in my own eyes now, caused by the emotions that were building up in me. ‘So beautiful. I love you.’

She looked at me. ‘You’re not just saying that?’

‘No, of course not. I love you and I love your body. I really love your body.’

She smiled.

‘Why don’t we go back to your flat and I’ll show you exactly how much I love it.’

This time she giggled, although the laugh and the subsequent joke did sound a little forced: ‘You’re just turned on from looking at the women in that magazine.’

‘Shit. You caught me out. Can we take it with us?’

We drank up and left the pub, splashing out on a taxi. Back at Emily’s, we made love: intense, wordless sex that made us both sweat despite the chill in the room. We said goodnight and after a little while I turned over to sleep. A few minutes later, I realised that she was crying.

I turned around, pressing up against her back. ‘Emily,’ I whispered, ‘what is it? What’s wrong?’

She didn’t reply. I held her until she fell asleep.

The weekend was fine – we didn’t mention the magazines at all; Emily dumped them in the dustbin outside. Then, on Monday morning, someone banged on the front door. I had just woken up and was lying in bed with a book that I was only half-reading, wondering if I might hear something from Pernilla about my stories. I sat up, images of a wild-eyed Siobhan or a troop of armed police at my door. I’m not sure which would be worse. There was another bang at the door and I forced myself to get up, commonsense telling me it was probably only the postman.

Commonsense was right. The postie handed me a plump brown jiffy bag and a couple of pieces of junk mail. I closed the door and chucked the envelopes onto the side table, then inspected the jiffy bag. It was addressed to Emily, c/o me. How odd. Why would somebody send something to Emily at this address? Then I realised – she had probably ordered something on the Web and used this as her postal address, knowing that I’m usually here in the mornings. Maybe, I speculated, she isn’t allowed to receive personal mail at work.

It didn’t even cross my mind that this could somehow be connected to the magazines she’d received at work. As Pernilla had said to Emily, that was probably just a malicious piece of revenge-mail from an author who’d seen Emily’s signature on a rejection letter. I took the package into my room, dropped it on the desk and went back to bed.

Emily came round that evening at seven. I greeted her at the door with a kiss which made her smile and press herself against me. A minute later, we were in bed, and a few minutes after that I was inside her, her teeth grazing my neck, her fingernails sharp against my arse, heating each other’s winter-chilled flesh and making the headboard bang against the wall.

When I came I saw a flash of white light.

‘Mmm,’ she said, afterwards.

I kissed her, then remembered: ‘Oh, a parcel came for you earlier.’ I hopped out of bed, grabbed it and handed it to her.

She smiled. ‘You bought me a present? Oh, Alex...’

‘It’s not from me,’ I said, wishing I had bought her a present. ‘Didn’t you order something online?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t ordered anything.’ She turned the parcel over in her hands. Then she said, ‘Can you pass me my T-shirt?’

I did.

‘I feel less vulnerable with some clothes on.’ She pulled the T-shirt over her head, covering her breasts. She looked scared.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

She looked at me. ‘I don’t know who would send me a present here. If it is a present.’ She swallowed.

That’s when I remembered the magazines. A small shudder ran through me. ‘Do you want me to open it?’ I asked. We were both staring at the package as if it might contain a bomb.

Emily said, ‘No, I’ll open it. It’s addressed to me.’ With trembling hands, she tore it open, then peered inside.

‘What is it?’

‘I can’t see yet. It’s in a black bag. Looks like – feels like – a bin liner.’

She pulled the black bin liner out of the jiffy bag. There was, all of a sudden, a strange smell in the room. My heart was beating very fast. I put my hand on Emily’s shoulder and she jumped.

‘Alex! Jesus – don’t do that!’

‘Give it to me,’ I said, holding out my hand, and Emily passed me the package. Slowly, I unwrapped it, and as the packaging fell away, the smell in the room became a stench and Emily screamed, leaping out of bed and running to the bathroom. I could hear her throwing up, but instead of going to comfort her, all I wanted to do was get it out of the room. I opened the window and threw it out. And then I ran to the bathroom myself. I watched Emily throw up the last contents of her stomach. All I could think was, who? Who would do this? And that’s when it struck me, and I felt even sicker. Pernilla’s words came back to me: that it was probably an aggrieved author.