April lifted her glass. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

After that, I tried not to think about you, or the fantasy of our happy family that had well and truly died. I tried so very hard. But there was a burning feeling in my stomach, and I spent the next hour or so checking my phone constantly, to see if you’d looked at WhatsApp recently. Whether you might be messaging her instead of me.

And I drank. I drank to dampen that feeling, and to welcome my drunk self back. To let her take over and stop me from feeling anything.

So this time, it wasn’t actually an accident that I ended up obliterated. I did it with a sense of grim purpose. I wanted to destroy myself with drink and turn into Her. And then I wanted, actively wanted, to become that pathetic wreck you always get so angry with, as a huge fuck you. I even thought about finding some guy and screwing him in the toilets. About finally, totally ending our marriage. Not by waiting for you to leave me, but by doing something unforgivable and then telling you all about it.

I half remember a little more, from later on. I remember the moment I realised April was gone. It was definitely Sober Louise who realised, and not the other one. I know because of how frightened I suddenly felt. So afraid of being alone that I thought about calling you. I really thought about it, despite how drunk I was and how much worse I’d feel about myself.

I remember pulling out my phone and finding your name. I remember staring at it and wanting so much to have you there with me. Caring about me instead of Dina. Taking me home and looking after me.

And then nothing.

Well, nothing I’m certain about. There is a memory that hit me while I was trying not to doze in a chair between interviews.

It began with me walking through a tiny garden. But that garden turned quickly into an endless, awful forest, and there was someone behind me. I knew for a long time that there was. I kept turning round to look at him, but every time I did, he was smiling at me like he was innocent and trustworthy. And every time I turned away and then looked back again, he was closer, without ever seeming to move. His smiling face seemed to float somewhere in front of his body, which horrified me.

I tried to run, but my legs felt limp. Out of my control. I kept tripping over. Time after time, I found myself on the grass or the frozen earth, and he caught up more quickly each time, until he was right behind me. I was screaming and trying to run, and then falling again.