Morag is the only hard thing to leave behind. If my brother was the best part of our family then Morag is by far the best part of me. She is my heartbeat. First time I met her she was standing at Cupid’s Corner (they only sell fruit drinks but you do get a great view of the dance floor) and I was smitten on sight. She was with an American at the time who was trying to leave the country. He worked for our landlord. Morag and Levi had been seeing each other since he helped her bring a new bathtub home.

I danced hard that night to try and impress her; two weeks later I stayed over at her place and I’ve been there every weekend ever since. Levi is gone now. Our happy threesome of cards and drinking and hungover walks is over and he asked me to keep Morag safe and happy and I’ve done that.

But I’m bored of selling dresses. I have strength to spare. I am young. I am not stupid. My years make me braver if anything. I do not need my mind manipulated to replace my own thoughts with ones written for me.

Killing is a good vocation for me. I know it’s not socially acceptable, but nobody can say it won’t be useful right now.

I will be efficient and mercenary given the right training and just one or two people to believe in me. Luckily I have found exactly that. Death by Ivy! Why is a girl so rarely afforded to choose who she is? Am I getting it wrong? Are these faulty thoughts? Are they just another thing I can’t possibly understand?

Life is a series of ever-smaller lassoes thrown by the thought police.

They land around our thoughts.

Drag them along the back of a truck until the thoughts are scattered so far behind us we can’t see them anymore.

My mum is obsessed with amphetamines.

After my brother died she stopped getting up, or washing, or brushing her teeth.

She did nothing.

It was her most interesting phase.

The doctor came.

He sat down gravely in the living room and ate a slice of Battenberg.

He insisted there was only one thing that could help her.

Amphetamines – two grams per day – to invigorate her blood.

My mother’s blood is very weak.

Not so any more!

They said the amphetamines would help focus her time and energy once again. It has done that and then some. She cut our garden lawn with nail scissors when the lawnmower died. She sleeps upright in the living-room armchair with a duster or magazine or cocktail in her hand. Our house is so clean it squeaks. But of course there have been issues. Yesterday I found her in the kitchen with her ear up to a silent radio.

– Maman, it’s six o’clock in the morning!