Mary took the next exit and screeched to a halt in the services carpark. Her hands were shaking, there were sweat marks under her arms and (even worse) under her menopausally enhanced boobs. The car seemed to be shrinking, its sides pushing in, smaller and smaller, yet she was getting heavier. Soon she would be the car, soon there’d be no point trying to breathe. That’d be a relief.

Mary had only learned to recognise a panic attack in recent months but had probably been having minor ones since she was a child. She breathed in for five, then rang her boss, Catherine, who answered this time: ‘Hi Cath, I’m not well. I need some time off.’

‘But you’ll be leaving—’

‘I’m not coping. I need a rest, just for a couple of days.’

‘What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do?’

For thirty years, Mary had encouraged her clients to be articulate and confident about their ailments when attending an intimidating and oft-times embarrassing eight-minute GP appointment. Mary was shocked when she herself had failed spectacularly on her last visit to the doctor. She had been practising since: ‘For the last eighteen months, I’ve had increasingly profound anxiety, rapid mood swings, poor concentration, a growing alcohol dependency, nausea, diarrhoea, constant fatigue, poor sleep patterns, night sweats, regular and increasingly scary panic attacks – including one on the motorway just now – heart palpitations, hot flushes, a dry fanny and sore tits. In a nutshell, I am suffering from The Menopause. And yes, you could help by telling me to go home to bed immediately.’

‘Have you eaten?’ There was a distinct lack of understanding in Catherine’s tone.

‘You’ll get the menopause too one day, you know,’ said Mary.

‘Ach, they’ll have cured it by then.’

‘I need to go home, I really do.’

‘You know what this means, though, don’t you?’

‘It means I’m fucking sick.’

‘Stage four, Mary. No-one in our team has ever reached stage four. If you leave on sick, you’ll never get back in.’

‘Shove your stages up your arse. I’m going home.’

Catherine sighed. She would now have to implement stage-four procedures, which were probably pretty complicated, as well as write two letters to court, and do-or-delegate the thirty-six other things Mary had unrealistically scheduled for the rest of the week. ‘Right, okay. So can you go to the festival first, if you’re up to it? Are you? Make sure nothing bad happens? It’s too late for me to get anyone else to go. Big Bob’s even calling me about this; it’s big news. Two officers will meet you at the entrance to the event. What’s your ETA?’

‘Sat nav says thirty minutes.’