I have sufficient tablets. I find the mortar and pestle. The mortar bowl that we bought in Paris on account of its beautiful crimson polished finish and it feels strange not to be grinding spices or peppercorns and I hope the Valium tablets will be easy enough to smash. I grind 20mg for Jenny and I place it in a red ramekin and I crush 20mg for the children and I place it in a yellow ramekin.

My potatoes are cooked and I mash them using the hard-wood pestle. I add lots of butter and a good splash of milk – three tablespoons but I’m not counting. I am merely gauging. It is a welcome trait, the ability to gauge, I remember I once told Mikey, when he asked me how much fusilli to add to a pot of boiling water, but that was ages ago and despite that I remember telling him to be careful in case he burnt himself.

And I do think that I’m happy often. At times this euphoria comes to me like a day off. A day off the lead, if I was a dog, humping and barking wildly and going for a stranger when I have been told not to run. I remember my mother telling me not to run and my father saying, stay and be kind and instructing me not to run, dogs can sense your fear. They cannot just sense it, they can smell it. I can sense my fear. There is blood sport for a reason.

I have fear – in our kitchen, but I cannot do anything to myself with the knife, proper. I try again. I see again if I have the capacity, the capability to stick the point of the steak knife into the vein on my arm. The vein is slightly pronounced now that there is some heat left in this evening, for it is the last day of the holidays and there is still warmth and very soon it will be autumn and the heat will have worn away like plastic spikes – worn down on used football boots. I know all about it. It seems as though there are football boots strewn everywhere here. It is a wonder that I haven’t had a terrible accident, perhaps suffered a spinal injury.