‘He had this disgusting joke that he played on the younger nurses. We’d all been through it so we had decided we wouldn’t warn Bex and Emmy when they started working with us. It was a bit of a rite of passage for the new girls. We’d all gone through it. We’re in it together, you know? He’d ask you to put his glass of water on the other side of the bed, so you had to bend over and then he’d sneak in a peck. It was nothing really. Just an old man desperate for attention.’

‘Sometimes I found her sitting in the office, doing nothing, just staring at something: her can of Coke, the dark tea in her mug, the black computer screen. She didn’t really see these things. She would be so lost in her thoughts she wouldn’t hear you come in the door.’

‘She was always tidying tidying tidying, doing all the jobs before anyone else could get there to do them. You couldn’t figure out how she stayed standing. And I felt so bad for her, because I’ve been through stuff like that when I was younger. So I said to the girls, we should do something for Ruth – we should come up with some kind of plan to stop her from killing herself. They weren’t so keen at first but it was easy to get them on board. The girls love projects.’

‘You know that bastard kissed me once? On the mouth.’

‘Alanna had the idea. She’s really, really clever, you know?’

‘It must’ve been the last week of January, she’d been acting weird for a while. I remember it was already dark outside. It was the end of the day and we were putting the meds in their little paper cups – you know the ones? Like the ones you get with a burger, for ketchup and mayo. And then we were meant to start the evening rounds. And I wasn’t saying anything. I wanted to ask her what was up but I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t want to scare her off. So I’m just flicking pills out of these blister packs and holding them up in my hand for her to choose from, and on the fifth or sixth round of doing this, she goes, “Mona, I’m so sad,” and she starts crying.’

‘Honestly, in my whole career as a personal shopper I have never met someone so awkward. It makes you feel good our service is free of charge. If you look at it that way, I mean, Topshop is an actual charity.’