I stopped, balancing my legs on either side of the frame, Ted yelping in complaint behind me.

How are you? My heart was beating very quickly, I noticed: I resisted the urge to take my own pulse, to check for regularity.

We’re good thanks, you? Mary rallied without pause, without a second to consider her answer. I did the same, my voice level as a bank clerk.

We’re okay, same old, really, you know.

I had long stopped noticing the tendency to refer to ourselves in the first person plural, as though we – two women, on a windy side street – encompassed multitudes, our expansive beings filled with our husbands and children. But I noticed it now. I thought about it, as Mary gave me a brief update on each of her children, making their lives sound both challenging and worthy, as though they were international diplomats, rather than primary-­school children.

So great to catch up. I was completely used to taking the bone into my mouth, however bad it tasted: I was a pro. I let a few seconds pass before I turned around to wince towards Ted, blaming his complaints for us having to leave. But he was now completely silent, sucking the strap of the bike seat, a look of severe concentration on his face.

Better get this stuff home, I said, trying again, tilting my head forwards this time, towards my basket full of shopping, as though it would melt in the freezing air.

Mary looked conflicted, pained, a near-­stranger at a funeral.

Lucy, you know you can talk to me, don’t you? If there’s anything – anything wrong at all.

So she knew. Shit. Fuckity fuck. I had noticed the swearing in my head becoming very childish lately, as though I was learning how to use the words all over again. Curses had begun to spill out of my mouth, dribble-­like, at ordinary moments, loading washing into the machine, pulling hairs out of the drain.

Ah, yes. Everything’s fine – but thanks. Thanks! The last few words were loud, sharply pitched, yelled over my shoulder as I pedalled away, the bike lurching to the side with the weight of the shopping, Ted calling out in surprise.

As I cycled home I could feel the humiliation filling me, moving my pedals forwards, driving me on. There was a flush, the heat that everyone talks about, but then something else, a deeper, slower removal of the self, a smooth sliding motion, like a drawer pulled completely out. In its place: a gap, a nothing, somewhere I had never been.

~

For a long time after university, I forgot all about the harpy. I buried my notebooks in boxes that were never unpacked, moved files to obscure places on my computer. It was easy, I thought, to get rid of her.