‘One last bit of housekeeping before I leave you all to it,’ Delores said. ‘Those of you who have been here for a few days already know that, for clients, there is no internet coverage nor mobile signal.’ There was a very slight murmuring and Delores raised her hand for quiet, smiling widely. ‘I know, I know – we are all addicted to our phones, myself included.’ She waved her own smartphone at them. ‘But the studies all agree: these gadgets of ours affect our sleep, not only its duration, but also its quality. If we are here to try and fix your sleep issues, it seems foolish to start off with the biggest problem still lurking in our pockets. Of course, landline phones are available free of charge to allow you to keep in touch with friends and family.’

Thea didn’t have a pocket in her cult clothes, but she’d shoved her phone into the waistband of her trousers and she pressed a hand to her middle, feeling the outline of what was now essentially a lump of useless plastic, glass and metal.

‘Enjoy today!’ The woman raised her voice. ‘Enjoy every moment but, best of all, enjoy the new and improved you that is just around the corner!’

At that she stepped out of view. Harriet turned back to Thea and sighed happily.

‘Shall we begin?’

Chapter 9

‘Kiddy fiddlers,’ a man in downward dog whispered to Thea.

‘Huh?’ It was only a few hours after Delores’s inaugural speech and Thea was contemplating her knees very closely.

‘The monks here. The monastery was closed down by the Catholic Church years ago. Kiddy fiddlers. Until then it was quite a nice spot. The monks made fudge.’

Thea wasn’t sure what the expected response would be to that, and they were now in cat pose so she went with a vague ‘Right?’

The monastery itself was up on the hill, not quite at one with the cutesy ducks-and-ice-cream vibe of the green below it where they were currently doing yoga. It was an eyeless, austere blot: a retinal detachment of a place with a bell tower bleeding rust down one wall.

‘Why did people want to visit that?’ she wondered aloud.

Everyone was attempting a back bend. Thea lay and looked at the sky. The man was more successful, his upside-down face turning purple as he gazed at her, a shark-tooth necklace dangling the wrong way up his nose.

‘Beats me,’ he wheezed. ‘Now, the lighthouse – round the other side of the island? That’s where I’d go.’

Maybe one day, Thea thought, people might come to take pictures of the Sleep Centre. It was an awkward cuckoo amongst the rest of the island’s structures, two huge white golf balls separated by a blocky middle bit.

‘Bit phallic, no?’ her mother had observed when Thea had described it to her via landline after breakfast. ‘And in which testicle do you live?’