Then Grace, my oldest friend, rang me, expressing concern at a photo I’d been tagged in on Facebook: I was scrawny and had dark bags under my eyes. She lived in Norfolk and had nothing to do with this tiny world so I walked along the river talking to her on the phone, breathing in the fresh, home-free air, and dared to explain what was happening. But I retracted like a spider when I sensed her reaction to my ‘arrangement’ with Karl. I could hear it in her voice: well, if you will play with fire you’re bound to get burnt. I shut up and came off the phone feeling more isolated than ever. She was right: I had only myself to blame. I was responsible for this mess. I didn’t deserve the self-indulgence of victimhood. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. Night after night I’d wake with a thumping heart in those eternal pre-dawn hours, feeling myself slipping into the dark abyss, clinging on to the sides until the sun hauled itself up and the day offered the small respite of routine. Josh asked me what was wrong: Are you going to divorce? When I said I don’t know he slammed the door. Everything will be all right, I’d said to the door. My other work was suffering; I missed a deadline and lost a job. And worst of all, the Lofepramine was having no effect whatsoever – it couldn’t deal with a real crisis, just an imagined one.

‘Hello,’ Dr. Rhys Evans said as I came in, her eyes upping and downing me, her lips pursed, her rigor mortis grin matching my own. I detected a glint of glee at the sight of my appearance; you see, she saw me as part of the cool club and it’s always pleasurable, isn’t it, Dr. R, to see the mighty fallen?

‘Good to see you,’ she said, swivelling in her chair, crossing one expensively booted leg over the other. ‘Hey, are you going to the quiz tonight?’

I’d been dreading the school quiz night. We’d had a table booked before any of this started; the usual gang, our two families – even Leah was coming. (Everyone was always congratulating Leah and Ness on having developed a perfectly amicable relationship.) The quiz was an annual highlight for the kids and was impossible to get out of. I owed them a semblance of normality.

‘Yes,’ I said. I just wanted her to up my antidepressants and to get the hell out of there.

‘How’s Ness?’ she asked chirpily.

I smiled and nodded gamely but couldn’t speak.

‘I saw her the other day. Blimey! She’s too bloody beautiful, that woman! She was put on this earth to make the rest of us feel like crap!’

I grinned some more. Give me the fucking prescription.

‘And your mother?’

‘Same really . . .’