I tried to help Azra, but she withdrew from me. For some months we hardly saw each other. When we did, she seemed closed off and irritable. I blamed it on the father business. But recently I’d realised the true reason; it was around that time that she started sleeping with my husband.

So I was late for Prisha’s funeral. And then I got lost, driving there, and found myself in an industrial estate filled with shipping containers. And I suddenly felt shooting pains in my chest. Ha! I was having a heart attack! That would teach me.

I burst out laughing. For a moment I lost my concentration. Pulling out into the Edgware Road, I nearly collided with a lorry. Horn blaring, it swerved into the centre of the street and nearly crashed into an oncoming bus.

I slewed left and came to a halt in a Dunelm car park. An Indian family were carrying armfuls of pillows out to their SUV. They turned to gaze at my car, which was parked at an angle, blocking the access road.

Oh, to crawl into bed under a Dunelm duvet! To sink into a Dunelm pillow and fall asleep dreaming Dunelm dreams! When I woke, Greg, too, would be stirring. He’d turn, put his arm around me and snuffle in my hair like a dog sniffing for truffles. His leg was hooked around mine. The mammalian warmth of the bed kept us safe. It smelled of sex. Through the wall we heard the tinkle of ‘Postman Pat’ as the children played in their room. The goldfish was in its bowl; the dog was in his basket; the cat was a slumbering lightweight on our feet. Nothing could harm us.

A car honked. I jerked to my senses and drove off. What was it, about car parks?

After driving through suburban streets I finally found the church. It was an unlovely modern building in Neasden. The sign outside displayed a golden bolt shooting out of a cloud. It read: ‘Be Still and Know That I Am God’. I think it might have been Methodist. Music came from within but there was nobody around except a couple of undertakers loitering beside the hearse. They took no notice of me.

Suddenly I felt a surge of gratitude, simply for being alive. My chest pains had gone. I hadn’t been flattened by a lorry. The unknown Prisha had died in a car crash but I’d had a stay of execution. I felt twenty again, on the prowl in my chic, seductive dress. I could turn round and go home; I could jump in my car and go to the cinema in the middle of the afternoon. I could eat french fries! How stupid I’d been to sink into a miasma of misery when my heart still pumped blood around the miracle of my veins.

And who cared whether my plan worked? I didn’t. The whole thing was ridiculous. In fact I’d momentarily forgotten the name of Prisha’s husband, the luxuriantly bearded whoever, the object of my desire. Andy.