“‘Is that what they call hard work nowadays? Fetish art.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Honestly, Irina, I wish you’d take some photos I could hang up.’”

Yvonne’s dialogue creates a stark contrast between her daughter’s transgressive art and her own conventional values. Her dismissal of “fetish art” frames Irina’s work as socially improper. For Yvonne, photography should produce decorous domestic display, while for Irina, it serves as a tool for exploring subjects her mother finds unacceptable.

“It’s like discovering a new flower no one else has noticed. Pressed in a photo; preserved and filed away forever, ageless and lovely and all mine.”

This passage articulates Irina’s predatory artistic philosophy. The simile comparing her subject to a “new flower” to be “pressed in a photo” explicitly frames the camera as a tool for capturing and possessing her subjects. Her obsessive desire for ownership is underscored by the final phrase, “all mine,” which reduces a human being to an object for her collection.

“I always say everyone knowing was more traumatic than being with him. Because: I did like him. I liked the way he made me feel. […] I didn’t like my dad, my nana and her cancer, my head teacher, Molly Jones, looking at me and seeing a raped child where Irina used to stand.”

Reflecting on her past, Irina re-frames the loss of control over her public identity as a traumatic experience. By distinguishing between the private experience and the public shame of being seen as “a raped child,” she asserts a complex form of agency. This passage complicates a survival narrative and highlights Irina’s deep-seated preoccupation with controlling her own story and perception over objective reality.

“Choose fucking up. Choose to come into my office and take cocaine because I told you to. Choose to follow me back out to the bar, after we’ve had a line, and drink a shot of tequila.”

Delivered in a commanding, imperative tone, this internal monologue reveals the nihilistic core of Irina’s worldview. In a reference to Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, the repetition of “Choose” turns the passage into something ironic, as Irina frames Flo’s compliance as free will while simultaneously asserting her own control. By forcing Flo to take cocaine, Irina extends her manipulation to the physical realm, connecting her desire for psychological dominance to a justification for violence.

“Sometimes it would be Will in the doorway, sometimes a red cat with the fucking bell. Sometimes, a different boy, younger, with dark hair and scars, choking. I knew him. He coughed, and he spluttered, and he looked so pathetic and lovely that I wanted to fold him into my arms, and squeeze him. […] I went back into the toilet, where I saw his face in the water, swirling away with the flush.”

This hallucinatory vision marks the emergence of Irina’s repressed memory. The appearance of the choking boy is a critical piece of foreshadowing. Irina’s contradictory feelings, marked by a desire to both comfort and “squeeze him,” directly link her psychological state to the capacity for aggression she has buried inside her mind.

“So all the time in uni she’d get blackout drunk (when i was with her, and not as fucked up as her) and she’d just sort of fill in the blanks for herself and repeat it for people, and I’d literally be with her thinking ‘well that’s just not what fucking happened???”

This external perspective from Flo’s blog establishes Irina’s unreliability as a narrator. By describing Irina’s habit of fabricating memories to cover for alcohol-induced blackouts, the text provides a crucial framework for interpreting her first-person account. This passage introduces the theme of The Unreliability of Memory, positioning Irina’s narrative as a potentially constructed and self-serving version of events.

“Being mistaken for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl has served me well over the years. I’d go out disguised in a non-threatening sundress and flat sandals, slouching and leaning heavily on my left hip, shrinking myself down to a less intimidating height. Drop a niche interest here, and a little sass there, and they eat me up, every single time.”

Irina’s narration reveals a calculated and predatory approach to attracting her male subjects. Her self-aware performance as a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” is a form of camouflage, weaponizing a cultural stereotype to appear non-threatening while actively hunting for models. This demonstrates the theme of Gendered Power Imbalances in Objectification and Abuse, framing her artistic process as one based on conscious deception and manipulation.

“I spend a little time in front of the mirror rehearsing. I try to smile, naturally, nicely. […] It always looks a little smirky or sneery, I think, or like the anxious grin of an agitated chimp. […] I think if I smile at him like this, he’ll leave. I look like I want to skin him and wear it.”

This passage externalizes Irina’s internal conflict between her performed self and her violent impulses. The act of rehearsing a smile highlights her alienation from genuine emotion, treating it as a tool for social navigation. The final sentence employs stark, violent imagery, creating a jarring juxtaposition that reveals the predatory desire lurking beneath her carefully constructed façade and foreshadowing the physical harm she will inflict on Eddie.

“‘It’s like when…It’d be like seeing a photo that’s…So, you think it’s a photo of a beautiful woman, man. […] But actually, it’s been photoshopped. Can’t enjoy the photo then, can you? If you know it’s not real.’

[…]

‘I hear they soak tampons in water, then pop them in the microwave till they steam. […] all I can think about is the fucking soggy microwaved tampon that’s probably stuck in it.’”

The dialogue juxtaposes two ideas about authenticity and artifice, a central concern in Irina’s work. John articulates a common desire for unmediated reality, which Irina dismisses by revealing the grotesque, hidden labor behind commercial images. Her specific, visceral example of the microwaved tampon serves as a metaphor for her own artistic process, which relies on creating a seductive surface that conceals a disturbing and often repulsive reality.

“I catch my reflection in the wing mirror. There she is, with her smudged eyeliner and her messy hair, the tracks of her hair extensions on display, lipstick on the tip of her nose and her chin. She’s wet concrete gone hard, full of dents, reshaped into this thing, which burps and pisses and has to be washed and fed and fucked. I look in the mirror and think: who the fuck is that? Who is she?”

This moment of self-reflection showcases Irina’s profound psychological fragmentation and dissociation. The observation that her reflection is a separate, abject “thing” defined by its base physical needs and damages illustrates her complete alienation from her own body and identity. The metaphor of “wet concrete gone hard, full of dents” visually represents her belief that trauma has permanently altered her.

“I run my hand up his chest, through the hair, and settle my palm on his neck. I squeeze it. I squeeze it hard, with both hands, and I let go when he turns purple.”

Irina’s clinical, declarative sentences and lack of emotive language describe an act of extreme violence with chilling detachment. This moment represents the complete fusion of Irina’s sexual desire and her predatory aggression, where the act of control culminates in physical harm. The focus on the physical effect, signified by the change in Eddie’s skin color, rather than his emotional response underscores her objectification of Eddie, turning it into the ultimate expression of her power over him.

“I find a photo that doesn’t fit with the others. One I was fairly certain I’d burned. It’s me, somewhere green. Me by a dead old tree with a great hollow mouth. […] I rip the photo in half, and into quarters, then eighths. I throw all the scraps in the bin, but eat the chunk with my face on it.”

The unexpected appearance of the photograph symbolizes an intrusive, repressed memory breaking through into Irina’s consciousness. Her violent reaction to the image, which she tears it and then symbolically consumes, represents a desperate attempt to destroy and internalize the piece of her past she cannot consciously confront. This act physically literalizes her struggle with the theme of The Unreliability of Memory, as she physically tries to eradicate the evidence of a past self and a buried event.

“i do not know WHAT THE FUCK happened to make her like that. She SAID that she lost fritz and she was sorry and I was ShOoKetH because ive NEVER heard an apology from her EVER. Fritz was actually lost, we never found him, but i just sincerely doubt she was actually upset about the cat.”

Written from Flo’s perspective, this blog post provides external insight into Irina’s character, highlighting her history of unexplained emotional states. Flo’s skepticism (“sincerely doubt she was actually upset about the cat”) foreshadows the later revelation that Irina killed the cat during a murder cover-up. The use of informal, digital-era typography grounds the narrative in a contemporary context while establishing Flo’s role as an observant, if not entirely reliable, chronicler of Irina’s behavior.

“I bash him over the head with my camera. […] If we were playing rock, paper, scissors, but it’s camera, toxic masculinity, skull—camera wins. Not a dent in the equipment, but a significant dent in Dennis, who crumples and lies gurgling in a rapidly growing puddle of his own blood. I snap a photo. I snap a few. He glitters like glass.”

This quote literalizes the camera’s function as a weapon, directly linking artistic creation to physical violence. The analogy of “rock, paper, scissors” juxtaposes the brutal reality of the attack with Irina’s detached, gamified perspective on her own aggression. The final sentence drives the recurring motif of glass, which signifies the escalating unreliability of her perception and memory.

“The transition from being hurt to hurting was natural. Even though I didn’t really know why he’d started crying—it felt like something I did. It felt like being a great big black widow and realising that all the male spiders were tiny and weak and covered in soft vulnerable bits, whereas I had this hard, shiny thorax and great big teeth.”

Recalling an early photoshoot, Irina articulates a pivotal moment in the development of her predatory artistic identity, framing her cruelty as an innate progression. The simile of the black widow spider solidifies her self-perception as a predator, emphasizing a power dynamic where her “hard, shiny thorax” represents an invulnerable exterior. This passage supports the theme of Gendered Power Imbalances in Objectification and Abuse by showing how Irina dehumanizes her male subjects, viewing them as weak prey in a reversal of roles.

“He went into animal-panic mode, all adrenaline and wiry strength. He hit me—not with an open palm, but a closed fist, again and again and again, till he was out of breath and I could barely see. I grabbed an empty wine bottle, from by the bin, broke it on his face because he wouldn’t stop. He could have killed me. He was going to kill me.”

This passage describes a central, repressed memory, yet its narration is framed as self-defense, showcasing Irina’s rewriting of her own violent acts. The repetitive justification (“He could have killed me. He was going to kill me”) casts her as the victim, a narrative constructed to absolve herself of culpability. This moment also underscores the glass motif, revealing its origins in the literal breaking of the wine bottle on the boy’s face, an act that becomes foundational to Irina’s unreliable memory.

“I didn’t notice it at the time, but you can see him trembling. You can see the shallow, sharp rise and fall of his shoulders. He was hard the whole time, I’m sure, but on film it reads less like poorly contained arousal, more like a prey animal, pinned, helpless.”

Watching the recording of her sexual assault of Eddie, Irina’s roles as perpetrator and artist converge, highlighting the novel’s exploration of The Unreliability of Memory. The distinction between her subjective belief (“I’m sure”) and the objective evidence on film (“it reads”) reveals her tendency to project consent onto her victims’ fear. The camera, her tool of control, captures a truth she wishes to ignore. It transforms Eddie from a willing participant in her mind to a “prey animal,” which simultaneously affirms her power and exposes the non-consensual reality of the act.

“I know that’s what I get from you, table scraps, but because it’s scraps from your table, it’s better than a 3 course meal with someone else. And you’ve given me glimpses into your life, your real life, and I wonder if it’s your fault. I wonder if you’ve got anything but scraps to give.”

In his confessional email, Eddie uses the metaphor of “table scraps” to articulate the core dynamic of his abusive relationship with Irina. Irina maintains control over Eddie by providing just enough validation to make her intermittent cruelty seem like a fair price for her attention. His question (“I wonder if you’ve got anything but scraps to give”) offers a moment of clarity, shifting from self-blame to a recognition of Irina’s own emotional limitations and questioning whether her cruelty stems from malice or an inability to form genuine connection.

“It’s hard just to look, isn’t it? It’s hard to look, and not touch, not squeeze, or prod, or squash all that soft, private skin they show me.”

This internal monologue articulates the direct link between Irina’s artistic gaze and her impulse for physical violence. The progression of verbs from “touch” to “squash” demonstrates an escalating desire for control that cannot be satisfied by photography alone. This line dissolves the boundary between observer and perpetrator, framing the artistic act of looking as an inherently aggressive precursor to bodily harm.

“Like, if me or the David Frenches of this world have a bit of a breakdown, it’s like…we spring back because Daddy always knows someone. It’s just not fair that your career gets completely fucking derailed because of your mental health, you know?”

Delivered by her former friend Sera, this dialogue serves as a pivotal revelation that dismantles Irina’s self-perception as a meritocratic artist. It directly confronts the theme of Class Anxiety Shaping One’s Aspirations, exposing the hidden mechanics of privilege within the art world. By framing her gallery invitation as an act of pity facilitated by connections, Sera invalidates Irina’s sense of achievement and triggers her subsequent mental health crisis.

“The narrative they fucked up by hanging them the way they had.”

This concise, declarative statement reveals Irina’s obsession with controlling the story her art tells. For her, the photographic series is a linear, violent narrative that must be consumed in a specific order to achieve its intended effect. Her fury over the curation demonstrates how her need for control extends beyond her models to the audience’s interpretation.

“He hadn’t thought this through, had he? Poor thing. He looks like a frightened rabbit.”

As Remy approaches her, Irina’s internal narration immediately casts him as prey. The simile “like a frightened rabbit” directly echoes the rabbit motif, reinforcing a pattern of dehumanization that precedes her violent acts. This observation reframes a seemingly mutual advance into a predator-prey dynamic, illustrating how her predatory gaze functions to disarm and objectify her victims.

“I wonder what the fuck I have to do for people to recognise me as a threat, you know? It’s like…am I even doing this shit? Have I even fucking done anything?”

This internal monologue captures Irina’s central psychological crisis: the frustrating gap between her violent actions and their reception. Remy’s casual framing of her assault as “knife play” invalidates her perception of herself as a dangerous figure, leading her to question the reality of her own transgressions. The series of escalating rhetorical questions reveals her desperate need for her violence to be acknowledged, underscoring the theme of The Unreliability of Memory and her fractured sense of self.