One evening while Rosina was sipping a glass of wine, listening to Pink Floyd on the CD player, she became aware of her school friend, Matilda sitting beside her on the sofa, dressed in blue jeans and tee shirt with the slogan, SOME OF US ARE BORN POSTHUMOUSLY, across the front. Matilda had hanged herself in the toilets at school when she was fourteen; Rosina hadn’t seen her since a year ago when she appeared beside her at a Deep Purple concert. This is a depressing album, Matilda said, sipping from a phantom bottle of coke. Depends how you come to it, Rosina replied. Matilda shrugged. Dead, in my case, she said. I make the occasional visit to the toilet cubicle where I topped myself, Matilda added, and rattle the chain if some poor wretch of a girl is sitting there and see her scramble with her clothes to get out. Laugh a minute. She released a soprano chuckle that echoed around the room, making Rosina’s glass rattle in her hand. You gave Miss Dowland a shock when she found your body hanging from the system way back then, Rosina said. Poor woman had a breakdown soon after. Matilda sipped her coke. No fun hanging yourself either, Matilda said, looking at the bottle. I was looking at my body hanging there; thought it quite odd. As if I was in some kind of dream. Rosina gazed at Matilda as she sat beside her with a pale complexion, her hair tied in a bun. Why’d you do it? You’ve never told me, Rosina asked. Matilda closed her eyes and sighed. I thought I was too fat, Matilda said after a few minutes. I tried not eating, but I seemed to get fatter. I looked at myself in the mirror, I was enormous, so I decided to top myself, so I did. But you weren’t fat at all, Rosina said. I know that now, Matilda said, but at the time that was how I saw myself. Everyone is allowed one mistake. Rosina sighed. A one off mistake that was, Rosina said. Matilda nodded. She looked around the room. This is a depressing album, Matilda said again. I played this the night before I hanged myself. Rosina got up from the sofa, turned off the CD player, and listened to the silence for a few moments. How about this Deep Purple album? Matilda said, taking a cd from Rosina’s cd rack. Rosina took the cd and removing the Pink Floyd, put on the Deep Purple. Matilda smiled deeply, grabbed Rosina’s hand, and began to head bang as she had as a teenager. Rosina shook her head. It was weird watching her ghostly friend behaving so wildly, waving her arms around, kicking out her legs in an Elvis style. Then Matilda was gone; Deep Purple had stopped. Rosina sat in silence; the space beside her vacant, and in the air the scent of roses, the scent that Matilda wore the day she died.