There was a skeleton sitting in the chair opposite me, in my house, in my space, in my time.

And it seemed more at home than me.

Who are you, I wanted to ask, but I couldn't force the words from my mouth. I sat in my chair, transfixed by the sight in front of me. Ludicrously, my mother's voice entered my head, her strictures ringing in my mind. "It's rude to stare," she would say, and slap me across the ear. How can you be rude to a skeleton? What are the rules of engagement? It sat, unmoving, impassive, as though weighing me up. Its eyes were fixed on mine, the intensity of its gaze gripping me. Beyond the sockets was a blackness of such density it seemed to be moving, an ethereal, swirling pulse of energy, and in the dark infinity I saw a glimpse of something I craved and feared in equal measure. It seemed permanently to be about to speak, its teeth - milk-white against the cream of the skull - bared and poised. But it said not a word, just sat in the chair opposite, and stared.

And as it stared I felt fear such as I had never known. It was physical, a g-force flattening me against the back of my chair and flaying my skin with the portent of unknown ordeal; and it was mental, scouring my brain and scarifying my thoughts, as though toying with my life itself. Snatches of memory flashed through my mind, long forgotten moments, instants in time recalled in a hectic, hazy rush: as a child, bullied at school and crying on the stair; and the angst of love; and the pain of loss. My heart was racing and a band of ice constricted my brow, a glassy tourniquet in contrast to the flush of panic sweltering over the rest of me.

Who are you, I wanted to ask. But I couldn't, because I didn't want to know the answer.

I tried to draw my eyes from the visions of hell dancing in the darkness of its sockets, but even as I did the casual terror of the rest of its appearance offered no respite. It remained quite impassive, resolutely silent, spread elegantly on the chair as though it were a familiar visitor: its very sense of ease served only to increase my own agitation. Its forearms rested gently on the arms of the chair and its fingers, curled and spindly, stretched idly over the edge, tips hovering in the air.

And then they moved.

Barely a twitch, the merest flicker of the phalanges, but the minimalist gesture increased my dread a thousand-fold. It was no longer simply a skeleton, this object opposite me in the armchair: it was a manifestation of death, and yet somehow it was alive. And in that moment when it came to life a little of me died - spirit perhaps, or hope, or desire. My gaze fell to the floor. And the skeleton spotted my moment of weakness.

"Who are you?" it said. I started. That was supposed to be my question.

"Harriet."

"Harriet what?"

"Scott."

"And why are you here?"

"I live here."

"No, Harriet Scott. Nobody lives here. People pass through here."

I couldn't decide whether the voice was in my mind or in the room. It seemed to be coming from the skeleton, but at the same time it was reverberating in my head, forceful and malevolent like recalcitrant memories which surface increasingly loudly the more you try to expunge them. It was a cold voice, passionless and without identity. It sliced through my heart.

"I don't know, then." I didn't feel able to argue.

"We'll find out, presently."

It was in no hurry, the skeleton seated opposite me. It seemed to feed on my fear, its quietude maturing in rhythm with my rising alarm. It was like a cat, I thought, heartlessly playing with a mouse, letting it go and catching it again, over and over before finally, on a whim, flashing its claws and despatching it. Its fingers thrummed slowly on the arm of the chair and it watched me pensively. I had the feeling of being appraised, weighed up by this visitor from beyond the realm of safety. I wanted to hide myself from it, but I knew that I couldn't.

"You have very sad eyes, Harriet Scott. Why is that?"

"Genetics."

"No, genetics made them blue, genetics made them astigmatic. But something else turned them sad."

"I've just been reading Keats. Always makes you sad." I was trying to hide my fear with bluster, but I knew it sounded unconvincing. I looked away again, emotions torn between terror and despair. The skeleton ignored my juvenile defence.

"And your whole body is screaming, Harriet Scott. I can hear it. Can you hear it too?" Finally, I snapped.

"Of course I can hear it, for christ's sake. Every day, every minute, every fucking instant. And I can feel it too, and live it, and breathe it. Try it, mate, see how you like it 3;" I was trembling, afraid of the direction of the conversation, afraid of revelation, of discovery. The anonymity of silence is a comforting cloak.

"What caused it, Harriet Scott?"

I made no reply. I could make no reply. I was rocking slowly in my chair, holding myself tightly, withdrawing from the world, from fear, from decisions.

The skeleton looked forebearingly. "You can't hide from me, Harriet Scott. I know, I know everything, as well as you do yourself."

"Then stop asking me stupid questions."

"Stand up, Harriet Scott." Immediately, I stood. "That's bad," it said, and for a fanciful second I thought I discerned dismay in its blank features. "Turn round." I wanted to disobey, but something compelled me to turn on the spot, slowly, shamefully, a tear in my eye. The skeleton observed with a look - nonchalant, pitying, reproving? - I knew not which. Both index fingers were tapping at the chair arms. "Pretty girl," it said at length. "Young, too. How old are you, Harriet Scott?"

"Don't you know?"

"Yes I do. You're thirty-one. Born on August 26th 1971. Fourteen hour labour, eight pounds twelve ounces: a bit of a lump, in fact, but you've turned out nicely. Do you want me to go on?"

No I didn't.

"You had jet black hair, masses of it, but it all fell off in the first week. You sucked your thumb from the moment you came out of the womb. That is, when you weren't crying, which you did most of the time because you were so big it was bacon and eggs you needed, not your mother's milk. Facts, Harriet Scott, I know all the facts. Facts aren't the problem here."

"So what the hell is the problem?" I wasn't sure that was a question I wanted answered, but it fell from my mouth before I had a chance to stop it.

The skeleton pulled back its skull, eyes raised to the ceiling as though in search of an answer. Gradually, in spite of the terror caused by its fearsome apparition, I was becoming more at ease with the skeleton in the chair opposite me. I observed the skull, and in a detached way I admired its beauty, the delicate symmetry of its features. Although my legs were still trembling, the raging emotions which had assailed me had begun to dissipate. I started to feel a degree of empathy with my visitor, no matter how ridiculous that might have sounded. I smiled to counter the aggression of my previous question. Coldly, the skeleton turned its gaze on me again, and in that instant the passionless glare of its eyes jolted me with dread once more. I began to understand, I began to accept: I was being judged.

"Are you ready to do a dance for me, Harriet Scott?" Its voice seemed different, less ethereal, more passionate, and I was confused by the seeming contradictions of this strange visitor: dead or alive, friend or foe, kind or cold?

"Are you ready to dance? A little dance, a dance for me, just for me?" The voice, once cold and forbidding, was now a seductive croon, all damask and walnut panelling, familiar, snug and homely. A curtain of warmth enveloped me, a gentle swish of support: quite simply, I felt wanted, and I hadn't felt wanted for such a long time, such a long, painful time. I smiled briefly at the skeleton and before I knew what was happening my body began to move, hips swaying, knees bending, arms floating. Something seemed to ooze through me; I didn't know what, but it was warm, and sweet, and soft, and it reminded me of the embrace of a lover, tender and forgiving. It felt as though I were thawing, emerging from hibernation, and the more the sensations flooded through me the more I realised how cold and stiff I had been before. I shivered involuntarily as a chill of remembrance skidded down my spine.

"Dance, little Harriet, dance." And I danced. And I danced. Round and round in a seductive parade, emotions on display through the conduct of my limbs. And from my dance sprung a thousand hidden moments; and through my movements were revealed a million secret heartaches. I sobbed as I danced, as my body expelled its afflictions. I felt a release, a release of the pressure, of the pain, of the torment, and I danced round and round, my arms in the air, my mind on a different plane. It was elation I felt, the joy of freedom. Those stabbing memories were being eclipsed from my mind, expunged from history, and I felt happy and skittish at the prospect.

"You're enjoying your dance, sweet Harriet." I knew it: I was indeed, my mind was swirling. It seemed wrong, but oh so right. Revealing myself like this, the living performing for the dead, seemed unnatural, but the more I did the more I wanted to be drawn to its world, to show myself, to be at peace. A curious elation had settled on me. My eyes were hazy, the room spinning and spinning, but my thoughts were focussed and clear. I was on a path, a road, long and straight, with nothing on either side and only darkness behind me. Everything was black, except for the light ahead of me, calling and sighing, pulling me towards it.

"Come, sweet Harriet, come to me." The voice was like syrup, warm and alive, and I wanted to come, I wanted, I wanted. My body felt loose and light, as though I were floating, an insubstantial thing, a fleeting, transient mortal. I could barely see the skeleton now, so wrapped up was I in my reverie, but I knew it was still there, implacable, immovable, an alien at home and at rest. Its eyes caught mine, the deep, dark hollows alive and intense, and a passion burned through me, firing my breast and spearing my heart. I was in its thrall, I was helpless. Wherever it led, I would surely follow.

Who are you, I wanted to ask. But I couldn't, because I thought I knew the answer.

"Undress, little Harriet, undress for me." It seemed so natural, such an obvious thing to do. I wanted to. I fluttered my hands down my blouse, picking at the buttons, and when they were all undone I slid it from my shoulders. Still dancing, I rode my hands up and down my hips, bending my knees and projecting my bottom. I popped the button of my jeans and slid down the zip, letting the jeans fall open to reveal my panties, then circled round and round, riding on the ball of my right foot, my arm trailing languidly in the air. That I was undressing for a skeleton never entered my head, that I was revealing my body to the dead seemed neither incongruous nor improper. I unclasped my bra and flattened my arms across my breast, squatting low to the ground, letting the bra fall the short drop to the carpet before I rose again and, with first the right, then the left hand, sequentially covered my breast, time after flirtatious time, before finally allowing my fingers slowly to trail off until I stood, at length, on show.

And in my head the tunnel beckoned, the shaft of light - so warm and engaging - leading me on, guiding my dance. I looked behind but there was nothing there, just a void, a black emptiness, cold and sad, heavy with the burden of memory. Behind me was weight, and pain, and challenge; ahead was the warmth of release. Slowly, seductively, I slid off my panties and stood naked before the gaze of my guest. And as I observed him, and as I observed me, it was impossible to say which of us was the more alive.

Or the more dead.

My memories were sloughing from me, a cavalcade of disappointment and fear and despair spiralling off into infinity, no more to oppress me, no more to harrow my spirit. My senses grew lighter, my dance a tripping, coquettish gavotte. Memories - blasted memories - good riddance to them all: no more the pain of bereavement, no more the wretch's lament. And suddenly it seemed so clear, so perfectly precise, the future opened before me: a solitary path, but one that had been trodden so many, many times before.

"What's in your mind?" the skeleton asked, but already it knew the answer. A bottle, I thought. "A bottle?" it said. "And what is the use of a bottle?" The pills inside, my mind declaimed, and the skeleton nodded assent.

"Are you ready for that, little Harriet? Are you ready to take the last step?" The light in the distance had dimmed to a pinprick, and all around me was deathly dark, a vista cold, thick and solitary. My dance faltered, my confidence waned. I stood aside, a dispassionate observer of my own, slow death, and watched my memories decay. And it seemed to me, as I stood on the wings, that the pendulum swing between pleasant and bad was correcting itself, was balancing, adjusting. I was crying again, and I couldn't say why: for the loss of the past or the approach of the future?

The skeleton sat in the armchair opposite. It stared at me, cold and impassive, its judgement made, its sentence passed. All that was required was my compliance. So alone, so utterly alone, I wept and weighed my fortune. And the darkness bore down, eating my soul.

Was I ready to take the last step? I stared into the skeleton's eyes, my dance at an end, a bitter chill invading my bones and numbing my mind. I covered my body as best I could with my hands, a pathetic gesture which merely served to increase my discomfort. My brain - propelled in a matter of moments, it seemed, from despair to elation to humiliation - was struggling to control the emotions welling inside me. The skeleton looked on, a sardonic smirk nestling in its features, its eyes still unforgiving and blank. All I had asked for, all I had craved, was support and advice, a confidante's voice, and it was clear that none would be garnered here. The inscrutable beast in the chair opposite watched my despair, displaying neither pleasure nor displeasure. Its eyes were a blank - twin featureless caverns of doubt. I tried to engage, but it was clear that the discourse was flowing only one way and that which I had thought my saviour was nothing more than my devourer. And still, as I debated my course, the inexorable passage to oblivion prevailed: my memories were trashed - sweet holidays in Scotland, a first, true love, the discovery of the genius of Byron - and my vision became blurred, eyes dimmed, the harsh, harsh truth becoming clear. I shook my head. I cried. I wailed. I didn't want this, I understood at last.

"Who are you?" I said.

The skeleton sat in the armchair opposite me. Its fingers, long and bony, were stretched easily over the arm of the chair, as though ready to beat a tattoo. It stared at me, its baleful eyes boring into mine, hollow, dark and endless, two huge, featureless expanses which told me nothing yet filled me with fear. Its jaw was set in a surly, cocky grin which exuded self-assurance and seemed to draw strength from my discomfort.

"You know who I am," it said. Yes, I did. I knew and the realisation terrified me. The skeleton moved slightly in its chair, its fingers curled against the fabric of the arm. It grimaced, its smile a rictus of regret and reproach. It stared into my eyes.

"But you're not ready to embrace me yet."

And I knew it was so. I knew it was so. I knew it. I knew. And I cried as I planned, as I thought of the future, thought of myself and reflected horizons. The moment had passed, the danger receded, and I knew I had no reason to fear. The skeleton melted into memory, a vague, painful memory of a vague, painful time. I closed my eyes, obliterated the past and obliterated the present. And then I opened them again.

In the future.

And I was alone with my memories.