She blessed herself. I didn’t agree with any talk of God or the Devil. I thought about Ann’s guitar. Where had it ended up? Hegs should have it. The body remembers, human, instrument. Somatic pain. All the pain-filled belongings we’re encouraged to just dump.

‘I remember her beautiful hands. Such beautiful hands and the longest eyelashes you ever saw. People were so scared,’ Jane said, after a long pause. She eyed us both again, running another trust test. ‘The people were scared, I don’t blame ordinary people.’

‘Well, I don’na know how ya’d put yar daughter into wan of those places,’ Margaret Rose said, defensively.

‘But they put the fear of God into you,’ Jane responded, ‘and you didn’t even know why. What were we so afraid of? Hell maybe. Or shame? Or your parents, siblings … everyone was terrified.’ She knelt on her bed now, back poker straight, and began to join her hands as though to pray. ‘But Tom is a good man now, though we got off to a very bad start, and I don’t love him, but he stays to his side of the bed.’ She said, ‘Though he’s so very quiet, hardly a word out of him, and I’m not mad keen on silence.’ Jane lifted up her holdall with her narrow fists tightly closed and lay back with it on her naked stomach. Margaret Rose crept back to her own bed.

I needed a plan. I would have to find something, Switzerland. Something. And I needed to make it clear to Alex. He needed to understand. Stories last a long time after you go.

Chapter 11

I slept badly. Ranting. Dreaming. Sweating. Raving. I was relieved when Wednesday morning arrived.

Hey, morning! Please pop in x

… Morning. Shit. What’s up?

Just come in please, I’m lonely and sick/don’t feel gud –

… You can’t be worse? You’re in the right place. Why the hurry? I’ll be as quick as I can, still horny?

(Aubergine emoji. And syringe. FFS.)

Fuck you. I’m bad. Seriously. This place is too much. Pls. xx

… REALLY? OK. Soz. Gimme half an hour.

If you’ve prepped lunch, then come, NOW Pls?

… (Another aubergine. Christ.)

… Fuck. Soz didn’t mean to send that.

K. You idiot. Don’t come until you’re organised. Have you prepped?

Bitch move. I always chose it. It quieted him fast. Guilt. Not being a provider. I’m so utterly afraid of marriage and its potential to become entirely catastrophic all of a sudden, that I self-sabotage regularly. I try to break the habit. But it’s utterly compelling, and lately I do it subconsciously. Yet as I watched A typing flicking this way and that with the dots illuminating/dying for minutes without a word appearing, I wanted to punch myself. I could never unsay them, these words I unleashed on him, I could try frantically to gobble them back in … this text has been deleted … but it never worked. Those words are utterly damaging too. Paranoia inducing.