@pauldovey: why you rubbing salad on your face, love?

@hideousfacepalm: Is he making you sign a pre nup?????

Ruby

‘My mother has threatened suicide since I was sixteen,’ I tell him, as we watch Bonnie chase a little friend she has made around a tree. I’m back on the bench with my unlikely new confidante. I don’t seem to be able to stay away. It’s easier talking to someone whose agony is so deep that my problems feel like paper cuts.

‘That’s rough, not easy I’m sure?’ the man says.

‘No, not easy.’

‘So how is she now?’ he asks.

‘She’s a morbidly obese alcoholic who lives in Cornwall and communicates mostly via status updates on Facebook, which I am rarely on.’

‘Hard not to take a suicide threat seriously though, I made that mistake.’

‘You did?’ I ask, wondering if he means his wife.

‘My other daughter. The one my wife and I managed to neglect as we dealt with our grief around Verity. She reminded us she was still alive by trying to kill herself on what would have been Verity’s twenty-first birthday. Luckily she didn’t manage it, but it certainly woke me up to what she needed.’

‘What did she need?’

‘She needed us. All kids want is their parents to tell them everything is going to be OK. But when you’re a parent, and you don’t know if everything will be OK, it’s hard to pretend.’

‘Yes,’ I say, knowing I have made no effort to pretend to Bonnie that the world isn’t a cruel and horrible place. ‘Well, it sounds like she has you now. Don’t underestimate that. I only had my dad until I was sixteen but that short amount of time with him is the only reason I have a soft side. His influence is inside me somewhere. He died just before my mother’s weight gain turned her into an unthinkable cunt.’

‘Woah, strong words,’ he says, and I hope I haven’t offended him.

‘Sorry, I don’t swear very often. Only when I really need the extra words.’

‘Was your mother really so bad?’ he asks me, as if maybe I’m bitter and exaggerating.

‘Yup, even worse. She drank herself to sleep every night and spent the days exhibiting clear signs of a bipolar disorder that to this day remains undiagnosed. She was cruel and hateful. I know it’s not always someone’s “fault” when they are that way. Once when she was drunk she made a comment about how her granddad touched her up in the bath. She never mentioned it again, but I’m sure it was probably true.’

‘God, that’s terrible. Your poor mum,’ he says. And of course, he is right, she didn’t ask to be abused. But neither did I.