There is something hard and leathery under my fingertips. Curved, solid. I grip on to it as my vision zooms in, zooms out, zooms in, zooms out. Focused, blurred, focused, blurred. The windscreen – clean apart from a dribble of bird shit, a street, a building, a road, the windscreen. Why do I keep looking at the windscreen? An image flashes through my mind, of Billy’s lifeless body on the dashboard. I thought I’d run him over but I can’t have. There’s no glass, no blood and the windscreen is still intact. A wave of nausea courses through me. It’s so powerful, so sudden, that I vomit over the dashboard, the steering wheel and my hands. The world spins and I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as the car fills with the stench of puke.

A voice whispers, ‘It was another blackout. Oh God. Not again.’

My voice.

My name is …

I search for a name, for something solid to hang my identity on, but my mind is so muddled, so grey. There is nothing behind my eyes but inky darkness.

Who am I?

My chest tightens and I gulp air into my lungs. Breathe slower.

Claire!

I open my eyes.

Claire. My name is Claire Wilkinson. There is a gold band and a sparkling engagement ring on the third finger of my left hand, smeared with bile. I am married to Mark. I have two sons. Jake and Billy. Billy!

I undo the seat belt and open the driver’s-side door. There is a flash of colour, a squeal of brakes and someone swears loudly.

‘Fuck’s sake!’ A face in a bicycle helmet looms towards me, a man’s face, his eyes wide with anger, his lips twisted into a snarl. He waves in front of my face, slicing his hand through the air. ‘Watch what you’re fucking doing. You nearly had me off my bike.’

I am so shocked, so terrified, I swing a leg out of the car and kick out at him. My shoe connects with his knee and he jumps back, doubling over, one hand pressed to his knee, the other wrapped around the handlebar of his bike.

I slam the door shut before he can recover and turn the key in the ignition. I press my foot to the accelerator and the car lurches forward. Somewhere behind me someone presses their horn. The sound reverberates in my head as I speed away, the cyclist shaking his fist at me in my rear-view mirror. There’s a woman standing beside him, a white Vauxhall Astra pulled up behind her. She’s got her phone in her hand.

I drive down street after street. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going. There are no thoughts in my mind, just an angry buzzing as though my head is a hive, crammed with bees.