Emma didn’t want to think about sex; it made her uncomfortable. Far too much importance was placed on it; we were cluster bombed by it wherever we looked. She had decided somewhere along the line, manipulated by the media and advertising, no doubt, that sex was the terrain of the young. Connie was right, the body didn’t lie; now that her periods were deeply painful and erratic, it seemed that her own uterus was conspiring against her, and her vagina had joined in the rebellion by becoming paper-dry. And she didn’t know whether the cause of it was physiological or psychological. Oh, the joys of the menopause knew no bounds: the hair that fell out when she washed it, the sudden claustrophobic sweats and the indisputable fact that her biological purpose on the planet had come to an end, all spoke of mortality. She, as a human being, in essence, had become obsolete.

Emma had been putting off going on HRT; she had been putting off labelling herself as going through the menopause full stop. But she was. These days she wanted to concentrate on other aspects of herself: the meditation, the effort to try and change her habitual thinking, to have more self-belief. But in actual fact, despite trying for a year now, she felt she hadn’t progressed at all. She wasn’t sure she had any graspable technique or aptitude for it. The moment she sat straight and closed her eyes in a search for stillness, it eluded her. Her thoughts played havoc, her mind a whir of daily problems, self-doubt and guilt. The book by her bed was reinforcing the fact that she must be kind to herself, not be full of blame towards either herself or anyone else.