It has to be worth it. I can’t afford to admit that any of this might have been a mistake. The odds have always been stacked against me, but I’ve always believed—or wanted to believe—that I could earn my dream job, simply by being willing to put up with enough pain. It’s worked. Finally, I’m doing something where I’m envied, not pitied. None of these women are writing to tell me to quit, and become a teacher or a recruitment consultant, so that I can buy a house.

They’re not happy, though. They’re restless, they’re not getting the recognition they deserve, they are spending their lives feeling trapped, frightened, unfulfilled, unable to reconcile their ambitions, and their sense of who they are and where they’re going with the person they have to turn up and try to be for eight hours a day. These women want to be me. They write to tell me so. I can’t quite bring myself to believe that I’m not happy with all of this. And yet. And yet and yet and yet and yet and yet…

After saving, saving again and saving a third time, I decide that I need a break from my screen. I’ll take a quick look in the morning, before sending it to Harri, but every bit of my body is aching. I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. There’s no question of me leaving the office. I can barely face leaving this chair. It could easily take me two hours to get home—and there’s nothing homey about the dark, damp, chilly flat.

Foraging under Louise’s desk, I discover a neat pile of blankets, called in from her ‘Hygge is back!’ piece (spiked by Harri who claimed that there were only about five people in the world who cared about Hygge first time around, and they all worked at Good Housekeeping). Shivering a little, already very much wanting to be under the blankets, I make myself a nest. I take off my boots, and unhook my bra, sliding the straps down, wiggling an elbow and whipping it off through my jumper with a flourish. I could take my jeans off, but…oh, I’ll just close my eyes for a moment, I’d really like to brush my teeth, but sleep is too delicious, the lust for utter stillness floods my body, and I wrap my arms around my chest, and rub my right toes against my left instep. I am confident, I am calm, I have cachet.

Just as sleep creeps up on me, I have a final, unwelcome thought. Harri wants me to be The Girl. The Girl wants to be Imogen Mounce.

But who do I want to be?

Chapter Thirty-Seven

‘There’s a dildo-making
workshop in Norwich…’

Harri

‘Imogen, this is much better. Thanks for doing this so quickly. This is just what I had in mind.’