That night, the night that Fairfax died, I don’t think I even lay myself down. I sat in my nest like the only survivor of a catastrophe – the only passenger in the lifeboat, sitting up and staring into the distance as though hoping for land.

Within my nest I had grown used to sleeping for hours at a time. Before Stefan died I made do with what I could. That’s a mother’s lot, I suppose – especially with a child who doesn’t like to close their eyes. When he was alive I slept the way a hungry man eats, gorging myself when opportunity arose, then surviving on just enough scraps to stay upright. After his death I feasted on sleep. Stuffed myself on it. Slept in a place of such utter blackness that to wake felt like breaking through ice.

That night I knew there would be no sleep. I was too energized to consider closing my eyes. ‘Het-up’. That’s what Felicity called it. Said I was going to do myself a mischief. Honestly, I think she’d have put leeches on my pulse-points to try and drive the demons from my spleen if she hadn’t been in such a state herself.

Harking back, I remember the feeling of anger. Was that it? Would anger do it justice? Perhaps it was something else. Some feeling I cannot articulate. It makes me smile to think how that failure would have angered me, back then. It was so important to me to know what every word meant, and to be able to use them in conversation without jarring. At Oxford, few things upset me more than hearing an unfamiliar word. I remember when Samuel, an MP’s eldest son from a leafy borough in Surrey, referred to his rooms at King’s as his ‘phontistery’. He’d said it with a flamboyant sweep of his arm; adoring himself, a lesson in confidence, a vision in his black velvet jacket and tangerine chiffon scarf, with his dark curly hair and dead-eel pout. My face had betrayed my lack of knowledge. He looked at me like I was an infant. Pouted, patronisingly, at the silly girl who had bumbled her way into the same college as so many more enlightened souls. I made it my business to use the word in conversation the next day. Learned its meaning. A thinking place. Samuel heard me say it. Smiled that mocking smile. I still remember the red circles of burning shame he brought to my cheeks. They made a game of it, after that. Made up words and dropped them into conversation, winking at one another as I scribbled them down, desperate to open a dictionary and improve myself. They probably thought they were just being funny. Didn’t realize I would have taken a hundred slaps from hard hands in place of that one sensation of being a fraud; an imposter.