She paused, trying not to think about how Mark’s voice would become dangerously soft sometimes when he came in at night and saw her there. Fat fucking bitch. Look at the state of you. ‘The irony was,’ she went on, trying to push him out of her thoughts, ‘that I had reached this size and all I wanted to do was shrink away, where nobody could see me.’ She cocked her head, a self-deprecating expression on her face. ‘You’d think I might have twigged that there was a better way of achieving that than getting even bigger, right?’

Rueful laughter, several people nodding. They knew her. They were with her.

‘According to my doctor, I was morbidly obese and in danger of becoming diabetic,’ she went on. ‘My blood pressure was high, I was at greater risk of having a heart attack, a stroke – all kinds of alarming conditions. I felt pretty miserable, I can tell you. Pretty defeated. I made excuses not to socialize because I could feel people judging me. I could hardly look at myself in the mirror any more, because I was so ashamed of what I’d become. I felt like a bad person, basically. And yet . . .’

This was always the part when she could feel the audience shift in their seats and lean forward hopefully. Because here, right down at the depths of despair, came the turning point, the moment of change.

‘And yet, there was one small kernel within me that held out,’ she went on slowly. She always felt her fists clench when she reached this bit of the story, that same old determination taking hold of her. ‘One small shred of me that still had some dignity. Which said: Something’s gone wrong here. This is not the person I thought I would be. And do you know what? The only one who can fix the situation is me.’

You’re very good, Margaret had said, the first time she saw Bunny give one of her talks. Very sincere. I’ll see if I can get you some TV coverage, they’ll love you. (‘No,’ Bunny had said immediately. ‘No TV. I want to be as low-profile as possible. If it’s all the same to you.’)