I’m not saying I’m wise. That would be a stretch. But I know that the above scene is the ghost that walks through all my rooms. This Heartbreak 1.0 is a loop I cannot cut, no matter how much therapy, how much distance, how much steel. It comes back, and back, and back again for my heart and my happiness.

What are you scared of?

Of being left behind.

Of not being wanted.

Of coming second.

And the disappointing utter fucking childishness of that.

BABY ELEPHANT

My mother and I sit, gin-loosened, in the lounge. There is a nature programme on the TV. African elephants trekking across the heat to find food and water. A small baby at the back of the herd is slowing. It desperately needs a drink. The narrator tells us how just a small amount of water would save it from near-certain death.

‘Dear god!’ I cry. ‘Whoever is filming this, do they not have a bottle of Evian in their knapsack? This is unbearable!’

‘It’s Nature,’ my mother says. ‘You can’t interfere.’

‘Of course you can! That’s what makes us human! GIVE THE BABY ELEPHANT A DRINK, YOU MONSTROUS FUCKS.’

‘Elephants are matriarchal,’ my mother says, ‘they’re smart. They won’t let it die.’

‘So why don’t they stop?’

‘Because they have to get to the watering hole to save the whole herd. She knows what she’s doing. That big old one at the front. She knows.’

The baby elephant collapses. ‘I don’t think she does. Turn it over. I can’t watch. Whoever made this should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.’

My mother shakes her head. ‘It’s like what I do. I can’t pick and choose what might be painful for someone to hear. I just channel. I am a conduit. That’s all they’re doing. They’re presenting life as it is.’

‘TURN IT OVER, A BABY IS DYING I DO NOT WANT TO SEE A DEAD BABY.’

‘The baby is not dying. See, the older elephants have spotted the watering hole and they’re going to bring some water back to it in their trunks.’

‘They won’t be quick enough. TURN IT OVER.’

I close my eyes and stick my fingers in my ears. La la la.

‘Jenny, they’re saving it!’

‘TURN IT OVER!’

She turns it over. ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw.’

‘Fine! Sure! Over there somewhere! I don’t have to see the horrors of the world to know the world is fucking horrible.’

She flicks back over quickly. I scream.

The baby elephant is prancing around, spraying water out of its tiny trunk, in the watering hole.

‘THERE!’ my mother says, standing up. ‘TOLD YOU.’