I sigh. ‘Do you dealers try your wares?’ I ask her. ‘Have you ever popped the odd Valium, Dr. Frankenstein? Diazepam? Lorazepam? Peterpam?’

That faint blush always betrays her. Of course she has.

‘Lorazepams are crazy, aren’t they? I mean, I never got that beautiful brain-soaking feeling quite the same way again but I got hysterical and frequently passed out. I remember one night playing Scrabble with the kids –’ I know, I was trying to make up for all the chaos, attempting to emulate a ‘Goodnight, John-Boy’ kind of home (had John-Boy been on Snapchat and Mrs. Walton been on crack) ‘– and Annie put the word anii down on the board which she said was the plural of anus and I started laughing. I couldn’t stop and I smashed my head against the mantelpiece and then apparently I just crashed out asleep, snoring on a triple word score . . .’

Sometimes I’d like us to walk out of here, share Lorazepam stories, go and have cake and tea somewhere; to play different roles than the ones we have been allotted in this room.

‘And how was the anxiety?’ she asks.

‘Well, very quickly I needed more than 1 mg to have an effect and then I’d rebound to worse anxiety than before, so I had to take more pills just to feel normal. They are completely addictive, which star-fucker doctor failed to mention, and not just psychologically but physically. My body lost its own ability to calm down. Presumably you know the legal guidelines in Safety of Medicines say that no one should take benzodiazepines for more than one month. And they should only be taken for acute anxiety. Tell me, how do you define acute?’

‘Tell me about the day of the Harvest Festival, Connie.’ She’s like a dog with a bone. I bet she drives Si Hubby bloody mad. Have you taken the rubbish out? – In a minute. – Have you taken the rubbish out?! – In a minute!

‘You tell me about you. You know what it’s like to be on your knees, Dr. R,’ I say. I’m taunting her. I can be so mean, but I don’t like her like this, the snooty superiority.

‘We’re not here to talk about me. Come on, help me out here.’

‘No. You help me out. Ask Karl to bring Josh and Annie to see me.’

She cocks her head, arms folded, furrow-browed. She looks like she’s about to say something. But she’s tired; she might just get up and go. I don’t want that. I look out of the window. The sky seems to be up to something, a smothering white dankness infusing everything, a pillow pressing down on London. I can feel it permeating through the panes of glass, a wall of suffocating chill right next to us.