You know what food Margaret actually is? She’s plain yoghurt all right, but with a layer of sweet fruit purée in the bottom. Margaret will surprise you, is what I’m saying.

Y is also for Yaris. I drive a Yaris. Helen says that only old people drive Yarises. She says that the government issues them to everyone as soon as they turn sixty-five. She says a Yaris is a ‘piece of shit’. I say that a Yaris is a fine, handy little car. It’s nippy and small enough for easy parking. You couldn’t get a better car than a Yaris. But if I had one day left on earth, I’d like a ‘go’ in a Porsche. A Porsche 911, if I’m to be precise. I’d find a big empty road – maybe the M50 in the middle of the night – and drive at 200 kilometres an hour.

Z is for Zayn Malik. Out of One Direction. He’s a little pet. They’re all little pets, but he’s my favourite. I recently discovered something unexpected about them – apparently they’re also singers! Yes, they sing songs and have records out and whatnot. I thought they just existed to sport marvellous hair and to pose like lovely playful puppies in pictures in calendars!

Z is also for Zebra.

Z is not for anything else. And that’s my final word on the subject.

Publishing in September 2012

The Mystery of Mercy Close

Enjoy the first chapter now …

I wouldn’t mind – I mean, this is the sheer irony of the thing – but I’m the only person I know who doesn’t think it would be delicious to go into ‘someplace’ for ‘a rest’. You’d want to hear my sister Claire going on about it, as if waking up one morning and finding herself in a mental hospital would be the most delightful experience imaginable.

‘I’ve a great idea,’ she declared to her friend, Judy. ‘Let’s have our nervous breakdowns at the same time.’

‘Brilliant!’ Judy said.

‘We’ll get a double room. It’ll be gorgeous.’

‘Paint me a picture.’

‘Weeeeell. Kind people … soft, welcoming hands … whispering voices … white bed-linen, white sofas, white orchids, everything white …’

‘Like in heaven,’ Judy said.

‘Just like in heaven!’

Not just like in heaven! I opened my mouth to protest, but there was no stopping them.

‘… the sound of tinkling water …’

‘… the smell of jasmine …’

‘… a clock ticking in the near distance …’

‘… the plangent chime of a bell …’

‘… and us lying in bed off our heads on Xanax …’

‘… dreamily gazing at dust motes …’

‘… or reading Grazia …’

‘… or buying Magnum Golds from the man who goes from ward to ward selling ice cream …’

But there would be no man selling Magnum Golds. Or any of the other nice things either.

‘A wise voice will say –’ Judy paused for effect: ‘“Lay down your burdens, Judy.”’

‘And some lovely wafty nurse will cancel all our appointments,’ Claire said. ‘She’ll tell everyone to leave us alone. She’ll tell all the ungrateful bastards that we’re having a nervous breakdown and it was their fault and they’ll have to be a lot nicer to us if we ever come out again.’

Both Claire and Judy had savagely busy lives – kids, dogs, husbands, jobs and an onerous, time-consuming dedication to looking ten years younger than their actual age. They were perpetually whizzing around in people carriers, dropping sons to rugby practice, picking daughters up from the dentist, racing across town to get to a meeting. Multitasking was an art form for them – they used the dead seconds stuck at traffic lights to rub their calves with fake-tan wipes, they answered emails from their seat at the cinema and they baked red velvet cupcakes at midnight while simultaneously being mocked by their teenage daughters as ‘a pitiful fat old cow’. Not a moment was wasted.

‘They’ll give us Xanax.’ Claire was back in her reverie.

‘Oh lovvvvely.’

‘As much as we want. The second the bliss starts to wear off, we’ll ring a bell and a nurse will come and give us a top-up.’

‘We’ll never have to get dressed. Every morning they’ll bring us new cotton pyjamas, brand new, out of the packet. And we’ll sleep sixteen hours a day.’

‘Oh sleep …’

‘It’ll be like being wrapped up in a big marshmallow cocoon; we’ll feel all floaty and happy and dreamy …’

It was time to point out the one big nasty flaw in their delicious vision. ‘But you’d be in a psychiatric hospital.’

Both Claire and Judy looked wildly startled.

Eventually Claire said, ‘I’m not talking about a psychiatric hospital. Just a place you’d go for … a rest.’

‘The place people go for “a rest” is a psychiatric hospital.’

They fell silent. Judy chewed her bottom lip. They were obviously thinking about this.

‘What did you think it was?’ I asked.

‘Well … sort of like a spa,’ Claire said. ‘With, you know … prescription drugs.’

‘They have mad people in there,’ I said. ‘Proper mad people. Ill people.’

More silence followed, then Claire looked up at me, her face bright red. ‘God, Helen,’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re such a cow. Can’t you ever let anyone have anything nice?’

THURSDAY

1

I was thinking about food. Stuck in traffic, it’s what I do. What any normal person does, of course, but now that I thought about it, I hadn’t had anything to eat since seven o’clock this morning, about ten hours ago. A Laddz song came on the radio for the second time that day – how about that for bad luck? – and as the maudlin syrupy harmonies filled the car I had a brief but powerful urge to drive into a pole.

There was a petrol station coming up on the left, the red sign of refreshment hanging invitingly in the sky. I could extricate myself from this gridlock and go in and buy a doughnut. But the doughnuts they sold in those places were as tasteless as the sponges you find at the bottom of the ocean; I’d be better off just washing myself with one. Besides, a swarm of huge black vultures was circling over the petrol pumps and they were kind of putting me off. No, I decided, I’d hang on and –