Probably hung over? There was no probably about it. There never was these days.

‘Come and get me, Alex, please.’

‘Are you fucking joking?’

My brain couldn’t compute this. ‘What? What do you mean?’

‘Why should I come and get you?’

‘Because I’ve – there’s been an accident.’

‘Oh really?’

I stopped crying. The shock stopped me crying. For some reason he thought I was lying.

‘Alex,’ I whispered.

‘Yes?’

‘Why are you being like this? I – I need you. I’m in the hospital.’

There was a pause. I could feel him struggling with something. ‘Yeah, well.’ His voice had thickened. I heard him take a deep breath in. ‘Bad luck, Maggie.’

There was a click. My boyfriend had apparently hung up.

In the end, my father came to fetch me. I sat numb in my hospital bed, racking my brain, over and over, and as soon as my father arrived I was out of that bed. God, I would have run down the corridor if I could have. The wheelchair the nice nurse wanted me to use loomed black and heavy by my bed, but I couldn’t bear it. Instead I clutched my father’s arm like I’d never let it go.

‘Please, Daddy, get me out of here,’ I whispered. I hadn’t called him Daddy since I was thirteen. And he understood my desperation, my fear of such institutions; he probably shared it with me, in fact, but he hid it well. He pulled me nearer to his red anorak that rustled so, that smelled of fresh air and bonfires. He stroked my hair, just once.

‘Chin up, hey, Mag,’ he said and his eyes were both sorry and kind. And then he put me in his car and took me back to his house – because though I just couldn’t remember, I apparently no longer had a home.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

On the Monday after Bel’s wedding I woke early and almost sick with nerves. For a moment I couldn’t think why – then I realised that today I was returning to work, to the nightmare of Renee Reveals. Pulling the duvet over my head didn’t make the fear dissipate. Eventually I clambered out of bed.