‘Concentrate on your breath, Jenny,’ Natalie says. ‘There is nothing but your breath.’ Is she giving me more advice than anyone else in the class? Surely I’m not the worst in the class. Dear sweet Christ, just when your day can’t get any worse. I breathe in and out and try and listen, but it sounds like a ventilator in a hospital, like someone being kept alive, possibly against their will. It’s not a tranquil thought. I’m not sure I’ve ever been good at being tranquil though, in all honesty. I’ve never seen a hammock and thought, that looks relaxing. I just think, that’s going to tip up, with me in it. Kelly bought me a session in a sensory-deprivation pod for my birthday last year and I got out after five minutes. It was so dark in there! The woman giving me the induction told me there was a button on one side for the lights and an alarm on the other side in case I got into trouble. But once the lights were off and I was floating, I couldn’t tell whether I’d spun right round and so I didn’t know which button was the lights and which was the alarm, so I didn’t press anything out of fear. She also told me I’d know my hour session was up because five minutes before the end, a ‘small wave’ would ripple through the tank, emerging from the top of the pod, behind my head. Well, I was on tenterhooks anticipating that small wave. How small is a small wave? Would it flip me over? I got out after five minutes because the tension was so unbearable. I told Kelly it was great, and I really fucking hope she doesn’t buy me another.

After class, Nicolette and I walk together to the end of the street. We pass a skinny woman walking her Italian greyhound.

‘You know that thing about looking like your dog?’ I say to Nicolette. ‘Do you think it could work the other way around? So you get a dog you want to look like and you become as one, shape-wise? Or is it that you’re attracted to things that look like you, in a cloning sort of way?’

‘I don’t think anyone would want to look like an actual dog, would they?’

‘I wouldn’t mind the physique of a Staffie. I might try it. I might get one. Maybe it makes you morph like any relationship, except physically not psychologically.’

My phone pings. Kelly again.

Hey – did you get my last message? Could do with a chat x