A banana and yoghurt (low fat) for breakfast, half a cheese sandwich (buttered!) with black coffee at eleven (she couldn’t bring herself to refuse her father with everyone else watching), roast chicken salad (no dressing) for lunch, and a sausage and baked potato for supper. Clare tallied the calories. After years of referencing calorie counters, it was easy. She totalled the hours walked and calculated the energy she’d expended. But even though the figures more or less balanced, she felt her heart speed up and her throat tighten. She slipped her hand into the sleeping bag and under her t-shirt, smoothing it over her stomach.

“There’s nothing there, Clare. Nothing,” she whispered.

But the pulley was more powerful and her fingers found a pinch of flesh.

“Fat,” said her brain. “You’re going to get fat. Get out of your sleeping bag and do some situps. It’s okay. No one will see you.”

“No. Stop it.” She clenched her jaw. “You don’t rule me.”

“Just ten. Just to be sure.”

Would the voice never go away? Would she ever really be in control again? Sometimes, more often recently, she thought she was. But then the balance shifted and she felt powerless again. Clare bent her knees and drew them upwards, as if to shield her stomach, and turned onto her side. That’s when she heard a soft rustle.

The lower section of a bush on the edge of the lawn darkened as several of its leaves trembled. She could just make out the distinct thickset, low-slung form of a female honey badger. Then the animal stepped into full view on the lawn, where she paused, raised her head and looked around, nose twitching. Clare wondered if the badger could smell her and, if she did, what was going through the animal’s mind. She looked so solid and, with her front legs slightly bowed, self-assured.

The badger’s attitude made Clare think about how confident she had been when she was younger. She’d believed she could take on the world. She was regularly top of her class, often the centre of attention, a first-rate tennis player and captain of the hockey team, and there were few things she wasn’t capable of. She had many friends, two of whom she’d known since she was a toddler. Clare was clever, funny, capable and loved. She hadn’t imagined she’d ever be anything else. Had she been arrogant? Was that why things had changed? Had she needed a lesson in how to be humble?