I wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at so I started to murmur things at the carpet.

‘Death. Life. Spiders. Toby Salt’s poetry. These cheese sandwi—’

‘Happiness?’

I looked up sharply. I knew the answer to that.

‘Happiness is a social construct. Probably.’

Liz sighed. From the corner of the pub, I could hear Toby Salt’s voice droning on about his new book. Any moment now, he’d start bellowing out a poem.

‘Is it?’ she said. ‘Is it really? And what about me? Am I a social construct, too?’

‘No, of course not! You’re—’

I tried to think of the right word. Real? Palpable? Beautiful? Treacherous?

‘You’re—’

Tangible? Corporeal? Sexy? Amphibious?

‘You’re—’

Amphibious? I was just thinking random adjectives now. For once, I had Toby Salt to thank as I heard him launch lustily into a Petrarchan sonnet and, mercifully, I was snapped out of my reverie.

‘Sorry, Liz. But I’ve got to go. It’s been really good talking to you again.’

I fled the pub, cursing myself and my stupid brain. Words, why do you always fail me when I need you most?

Friday August 3rd

Dylan is in Marbella from tomorrow with Sophie and Stuart. He has sent me a link to where they’re staying. It’s a villa with two heated pools, three bathrooms, a Jacuzzi, an on-call maid and dinner service. There is ready access to a local golf course.

I thought again about the prospect of our week together in sodden North Yorkshire. He’ll find it such a let-down, which I suppose is how he must find me.

If only there was some way I could make a success of my writing. I looked out at my shed’s accusatory silhouette. It occurred to me that I’d been going about it all wrong: it’s not about where I write but what I write. I’ve just not stumbled on the right topic or format yet. I closed my eyes and focused for three solid minutes but could make no further progress.

Saturday August 4th

I think I have it!

I’d been moping around, worrying about my money problems, and thinking about Douglas’s funeral and our poetry readings, when the answer suddenly came to me . . . DEATH!

It had been a real struggle to find a good poem for the service. The selections were fine as far as they went but they all seemed a little too familiar, impersonal and rather dated. There is, it would seem, a real dearth of decent modern poems about death.

This was the gap in the market I’d been hoping for! Could I write something that might corner the funeral market in the way that, say, ‘Happy Birthday’ had the whole birthday thing sewn up? Or Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas, Everybody’ dominated the festive season? If I could, I’d be quids in.