I’ve never had many friends. It’s mostly by design: I actively avoid having too many attachments, too many relationships that I might not be able to trust. A primary school teacher once told Mum I was ‘prickly’. She ended up keying his car. I don’t often open up to people because I know where it can lead. And that dirty, itchy feeling is something that’s always been easier to endure alone. But Kelly’s different. I like her. I trust her. And after all our email exchanges before I came here, I feel like I know her. Most of all, I want to talk to her. I want, for once, to be honest. Dr Abebe would be incandescent with pride.

He came to visit me after I’d been in the Maudsley almost a week. I’d been moved from the psych ICU to an open ward by then, and although they’d lowered the dosage of whatever they’d put me on, I still felt like someone else. I couldn’t think or sleep. I just shook and itched and stared at walls. When I saw Dr Abebe coming towards me – wearing one of his shiny, ill-fitting suits, black-framed glasses too big for his face, and that solemn half-smile, it was the first time I’d felt anything for days.

‘It’s Haldol,’ he said when I asked. ‘They’ll take you off it pretty soon. You’re doing well.’

‘When can I leave?’

‘You’re not doing that well.’

I remember the smell of his cologne as he leaned closer, something sharp and cool; I wondered if it had been a Christmas present. ‘This was a psychotic break, Maggie. It’s a big deal, and you can’t run away from it.’

‘I know.’ Even though that was pretty much exactly what I planned on doing.

When I told him much later that I was coming here, he knew better than to try to talk me out of it. He spoke to that GP in Stornoway, set up remote support, had me make promises which he knew I always tried to keep.

‘You need to tell someone else, Maggie. Someone there needs to know. And you need to promise me you’ll tell them.’

And when I hesitated, that solemn half-smile disappeared. ‘Promise me, Maggie. After what happened in the crematorium, you have to.’

I’d promised.

‘Have you heard of jamais vu?’ I say now to Kelly. I don’t wait for her to answer in case I lose my nerve. ‘It’s the opposite of déjà vu. I used to get it all the time when I was growing up. It’s where something or someone that should be – that is – very familiar to you, like your house or your family, suddenly isn’t. You don’t recognise them. They feel completely alien. It’s a horrible feeling. Like I didn’t belong in my own body, my own life.’ I pause. ‘Sometimes, it makes you remember things that have never happened to you. So some people call it postcognition.’

‘Of a past life,’ Kelly says.