The train was full of commuters. As ever I picked up on the cues of people’s lives – accounts spreadsheets, text messages flashing up on screens with evening plans and reminders to pick up milk, phone conversations about a colleague, or a sick aunt. I started to have those thoughts again, the ones that had persuaded me that I was already dead so it wouldn’t be a big deal if I committed suicide. It would be a relief, and everyone would benefit from it. I started to cry. No one paid any heed until my shoulders started bobbing up and down, and then a group of women gathered around me like hens and asked me what was wrong. I told them I’d broken up with my boyfriend.

‘Dear oh dear,’ one of them said, and another said, ‘Well, if you ask me, he sounds like a Grade A cockwomble,’ and they hugged me to their fleshy bosoms.

The train stopped at Durham. The hens told me I was pretty and young and didn’t need a man, and then they got off the train. I dabbed my eyes and kept my gaze fixed on the cathedral, on its sharp spires jabbing the bellies of clouds. Cars threaded through the streets and a smudge of kids played in a back garden. I envied their central heating and washing machines, the comfortable beds that they’d be able to climb into at the end of the day. I had none of that, now, and I had the sensation of being a tiny boat cut loose and drifting rapidly along a thrashing river with a waterfall thundering in the distance. To make matters worse, it occurred to me that I’d left my medication in David’s flat. I found my mobile phone in my bra and rang his number, but it didn’t connect. He had blocked me.

Panic started to stir in me like a thousand manic butterflies. What was I going to do? Where would I go?

I would end it.

That’s what I would do.

Properly, this time.

My own reflection came into view in the glass, and I jumped, thinking at first that a woman had somehow materialized on the other side of the window. But no, it was me. I barely recognized myself. It had been ages since I looked in a mirror – I deliberately avoided this because I hated myself so much – but there I was, looking back at myself.

My reflection had a surprising look of grit. She didn’t look nearly as awful as I felt. She was thin, yes, and her outgrown bob was messy, and she had dark circles under her eyes, but she looked like someone I’d like to talk to. Someone who would listen and not wait until it was their turn to offer an opinion.

My reflection said, You’re writing a book, remember? If you die, the book won’t get finished.