I had cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom and had moved on to the floors. The carpets simply dazzled me in their loveliness – we’d bought them only a month ago and settled on a soft grey in a wool mix and I loved to keep them clean. We’d also – because it seemed silly not to when we had new carpets – bought a super-flash hoover. I just loved it! I loved running it over and over the cut pile, feeling it pull up all the dirt so there was no muck left behind.

At the time I felt as if I could hoover up the filth out of my life: but I was wrong.

I was hoovering, headphones in, Queen loud in my ears and singing loudly, when Nick came in.

I jumped just to see him. I hadn’t expected him to be home for hours, so to see him in his police uniform there in the doorway alarmed me. I glanced at the bedroom clock and was stunned to see it was after seven. The music still blared in my ears. He was saying something but I couldn’t hear him and I was having trouble adjusting: where had the time gone? I thought it was four – definitely no later than five. But now . . . all that time had passed me by.

What had I been doing?

And where was Jack?

I think I just stood there blinking. I knew it took me longer to order my thoughts when I was on diazepam and codeine together. I didn’t always like it but I accepted it because it was worth the feeling they gave me.

Then Nick took a step towards me and I knew I was in trouble.

He looked furious: eyebrows drawn into a line; blue eyes stormy; large hands up and gripping the air as if already wringing my neck. He was mouthing something but I couldn’t hear. I could tell he was shouting, because his Adam’s apple was jumping up and down as if it believed if it bounced high enough it could escape out of his mouth. When the idea amused me almost to a giggle, I realised that I was stoned – too stoned.

He strode closer and with one hand yanked on the wire and my headphones popped from my ears.

‘You.’ Bam: he pushed against my chest. ‘Silly.’ Bam: again. ‘Bitch.’ Bam. The last time was hard enough to make me swing my arms wildly to stay upright.

With the other hand, he thrust broken pieces of something (a plate? no, a mug? no, not sure) under my nose. ‘What have you done, Lisa?’ he shouted.

I blinked, unsure. What had I done? I’d been in another world, a place where the carpet became clean in smooth easy strokes, the music had been all-consuming, and everything had been lovely. Fun; mellow; lovely.

‘You don’t know, do you, Lisa? Because, as fucking usual, you’re out of it!’