He told me that I needed to be more positive about the world around me.

He told me that I needed to have more confidence in my own abilities.

He told me that I really shouldn’t feel lonely, not when each of us has the whole universe inside ourselves.

I asked him what made him think I needed to devise better coping strategies. He made reference to my sobbing and the repeated banging of my head on the table.

I pointed out to him that, admittedly, I may have over-reacted to the demise of my lentil cottage pie. But it was only ruined because I’d spent the last two hours on the phone, waiting in a queue to speak to someone in New Delhi about getting the Wi-Fi fixed, which – with impeccable timing – had decided to go down just as we were about to watch a film on my laptop. We were watching a movie online because – half an hour previous – one of the shelves above the television had given way, and the subsequent avalanche of books had knocked it off the shelf, the screen smashing into several thousand fragments on the floor, among the rubble of un-ISBN-ordered volumes.

It was a lot of adversity to cope with in a very short space of time.

I asked him what made him think that I needed to be more positive about the world around me. He pointed to the latest Well Versed magazine, which was pinned to the kitchen wall and open at the winning poem, to which I’d added my own graffiti as well as the three darts which were sticking out of a photograph of Toby Salt’s face. I wondered whether now was the right time to mention the rather ingenious scoring method I’d devised to accompany this activity but thought better of it.

I asked him what made him think that I needed to be more confident in my own abilities. He pointed at my pedal bin, which was crammed full of scrunched-up half-written stories and abandoned poems. I didn’t say anything in response to this either.

I didn’t ask him what made him think that I was lonely.

Sunday February 25th

Today was an improvement. We breakfasted late, played Scrabble and listened to some records. But still I couldn’t help thinking that Dylan seemed more relieved than disappointed when Sophie came to pick him up this afternoon.

I watched them walk off down the path and approach the car parked outside my house. I could just about make out the figure of the man in the driver’s seat. He was wearing sunglasses and pounding the steering wheel, presumably in time to some music. As Sophie and Dylan opened the doors and climbed in, I heard the sound of ‘The Power of Love’ by Huey Lewis and the News.