Call-Me-Melissa has come up with her seasonal project. It’s her own New Year’s resolution to give to charity, but of course, none of her subordinates are exempt from it. Care home staff and patients are invited to produce rag-and-cloth dolls, which are sold to wealthy women who like to furnish their houses in a ‘shabby chic’ style. This is only one of the many things that Melissa’s charity does. The patients can choose whether to take part, but the staff aren’t given an option. It takes me a whole night to make the doll for my contribution. I work with pieces of twine for the hair and use offcuts from the clothing that Neil has left behind. His running gear, for example: he phased it out when he started to wear natural fibres only. In his fitness phase, he’d insisted on wearing black hi-tech roll necks with luminous inserts along the stitching. He slunk out of the flat like a thief. Where was he going?

I sleep an hour and wake up at 6:30 a.m. with the alarm on my phone ringing.

In this dream his bald skull is lying before me. It is freshly shaved, for the first time in a while, the skin irritated along the grooves made by the electric razor. He’s come back to bed. He’s said sorry. All is good again. He’s lying with his back to me. I cling to it and match my toes to his. I reach up my hand to stroke his face but find only a flat surface, smooth on all sides and dotted by the braille of his stubble.

The doll I produce looks like a miniature goth who might hang out in Camden. I email Melissa to tell her I am done and she immediately rings me back on my mobile, insisting I go to her house to drop it off, even though it’s a Saturday. What she actually says is, ‘Come over, sweetheart, I’ll show you my collection.’ I stifle a laugh; she sounds like an old pervert. And perhaps she is a little perverse, since she seems to be unable to restrain herself from showing off her wealth, her thorough happiness.

I fuss nervously over what shoes to wear to Melissa’s house. Will my brown heels look dirty on her cream carpet? They do. The dolls are sitting in rows in the tall gilded cabinet. They look out of place, like adopted children, but perhaps that is the point and that is after all what the charity is about. Melissa is fretting; she asks me if I have a few minutes to listen as she practises her speech for tomorrow.