‘I’ve every right to feel sorry for myself,’ I said, feeling very sorry for myself indeed.

‘You can’t go through life blaming other people for your faults,’ she said sternly. ‘You’re an adult. Take responsibility for yourself and your happiness. You’re no longer hidebound by the role your family gave you. Just because you were told you were too tall or too stupid doesn’t actually mean you are.’

‘I’ve been very damaged by my family,’ I sniffed, self-righteously, ignoring her galvanizing speech. I caught Mike trying not to laugh. And Misty was openly sneering.

‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded angrily of her. I’d never have confronted her, if I hadn’t been raging.

‘You? Damaged?’ She laughed.

‘Yes,’ I said loudly. ‘Me. Damaged.’

‘If you’d had your father coming into your bed every night from when you were nine years of age and forcing his dick into you, then I’d say you were damaged,’ she said quickly and shrilly. ‘If you had your mother calling you a liar and belting the crap out of you when you asked her for help, then I’d say you were damaged. If your older sister left home when she was sixteen and abandoned you to your father, then I’d say you were damaged!’ Her face was contorted with wild emotion and she was on the edge of her chair. Her freckles were almost hopping off her face and she was openly snarling. Suddenly, she seemed to realize what she was saying, stopped abruptly, sat back and lowered her head.

I could feel the frozen shock on my face. It was mirrored on the faces of everyone else there. Except for Josephine’s. She’d been expecting this.

‘Misty,’ she said gently, ‘I was wondering when you were going to tell us.’

No further attention was paid to me for the rest of the session. Misty had shamed me, but at the same time I couldn’t banish the resentment I felt at her because she’d stolen my thunder.

After group, when I went to the dining-room, Misty was crying and, to my great alarm, Chris was almost sitting on her lap. He looked up when I came in then turned back, very deliberately, to Misty and tenderly wiped her tears away with his thumbs. The way he’d once done to me. I was as jealous as if we’d been married for four years and I’d just caught him in bed with Misty. He looked at me again, his expression unreadable.

55

With Misty’s shock revelations, the huge amounts of attention that had been paid to me all week came screeching to an abrupt halt. Her childhood abuse was an all-singing, all-dancing production which took up both the Friday sessions and lots of the following week. Everyone’s focus was on her, as she raged and wept, screamed and howled.

Almost with a sense of anti-climax, I found that life in the Cloisters continued in much the same way as it had before the apocalyptic visit from Brigit and Luke. OK, so I constantly fantasized about killing them both. But I still went to group, ate my meals, bickered and played with the others. I went to my Narcotics Anonymous meeting on Thursday night, to cookery on Saturday morning and I played games on Saturday night. But mostly I kept a close eye on Chris. I was frustrated by his slipperiness because while he was nearly always nice to me, it was only up to a certain point. I’d hoped that at some stage he’d have cornered me for a clinch, but it never happened. And what really bothered me was that he was as nice – sometimes even nicer, I feared – to Misty.

Despite his elusiveness, he listened patiently when I screeched hysterically about what lying bastards Luke and Brigit were. In fact, all the inmates gave me airspace, even if I suspected they were humouring me. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the time Neil was furious with Emer. When he’d called her every name under the sun, and everyone had gently patted him on the back and mildly agreed with him.

Chaquie was the person who stopped me from going round the bend. She stayed up with me when I couldn’t sleep from fury. Luckily, her great narkiness seemed to have passed. Which was just as well because there wasn’t room for two loopers in a room as small as ours.

I was much angrier with Luke than with Brigit. But I was also very confused. When we’d lived in New York, Luke had been affectionate and tender to me. I couldn’t come to terms with the change. The contrast was just too much.

With bitter-sweet torment, I kept remembering him at the zenith of his loveliness to me, the previous November when I’d had the flu. I couldn’t stop taking the memory out, unwrapping it as if it was a family heirloom and hugging it to me.

Brigit had been away for the week. In New Jersey, on a course to learn how to boss people around more effectively. An ass-kicking conference or something. Naturally, the minute she left, Luke arrived with a facecloth and a week’s supply of underpants. What was the point of having an empty apartment if you didn’t maximize your chances of sex in every room in the place without fear of interruption?

It was gorgeous. Nearly like being married, except I could still breathe. Each evening we rushed home to each other, cooked dinner, took long, leisurely baths together, had sex on the kitchen floor, the bathroom floor, the living-room floor, the hall floor and the bedroom floor. We left together in the morning and got the same train to work. He always had my subway token ready for me. When he got off first in midtown, he kissed me in full view of everyone on the A train and said, ‘See you this evening, my turn to cook.’ Domestic bliss.

On Wednesday, I felt dodgy all day. But I was used to feeling awful in work, so I didn’t pay much attention. Only on the walk home from the subway station did I really start to feel peculiar. Cold and hot, achy and fuzzy.

I staggered up the stairs to the apartment, my legs almost paralysed. At the top, Luke flung wide the front door, gave me a big grin and said ‘Hi honey, you’re home!’ He bustled me in and said ‘The takeaway is on its way. I didn’t know whether to get you chocolate or strawberry, so I got you both. Now, let’s get you out of these wet clothes!’

He often said that, even though, of course, my clothes weren’t wet.

‘Come now,’ he chided, unbuttoning my Diana Rigg raincoat, ‘you’re soaked through!’

‘No, Luke,’ I protested weakly, feeling like I might faint.

‘Not another word, young lady,’ he insisted, unzipping my jacket with a whizz, then pulling it off my shoulders.

‘Luke, I feel a bit…’ I attempted again.