Thea thought about trying to explain it. She didn’t feel like she was better than them at all; in fact they were all quite clearly better than her – better at being human and sociable and remembering each other’s birthdays and the ages of their children. Thea didn’t have the energy for any of that. She tried sleeping later at the weekends in the hope that would tide her over for the coming week, but it never did. Sleep debt, it was called, and her debt was the kind that got loan sharks circling. She would never be able to repay it.

But that was going to stop, Thea thought, taking a swig of her wine. She couldn’t let insomnia continue to ruin her days as well as her nights. A life – that’s what she was going to have. Starting now.

‘Cheers, Mark,’ she said, raising her glass with a hand that continued to shake.

‘It’s Mike.’

Luckily, her 7 p.m. boost of brief energy kicked in and she listened, laughed in the right places, bought drinks, admired photos of holidays and children and did it all despite the fact that her brain began to whirl and the noise and heat of the pub began to close in on her.

‘And so, Mark, what do you like to do in your free time?’

He had a weak chin and there was a strange smell to him, as if he’d been out in the rain and left to dry too slowly, but he seemed pleasant enough. Thea smiled.

‘It’s Mike.’

More photos, more drinks, more laughing, more brain swirling, more noise and heat. But the noise was welcome; it drowned out the sound of grinding metal that she couldn’t get out of her head. Lisa’s perfume masked the acrid smell of burnt rubber.

People as twisted and shattered as that lump of metal and glass.

‘Another, Mark?’ She forced the corners of her mouth back up into a smile and motioned with her empty wine glass.

‘Mike.’

‘Shit! Sorry! Really I’m—’

But he had already turned away to the woman on his other side. She couldn’t blame him. It seemed that she could do everything except remember this man’s name. It slipped out of her grasp every time she opened her mouth. The wine churned in her empty stomach and suddenly she wanted to leave, before Mark – Mike! – told everyone how stupid she was, before she threw up the wine, before her exhausted brain refused to tell her equally exhausted body what to do and she had to be carried out of the pub like an invalid.