Either way, it left Ellen feeling even more depressed. It made her feel pointless and incompetent.

The phone rang and Ellen quickly answered it, hoping for a cancellation, ideally of the morning’s first appointment so she could go back to bed.

“Good morning,” she said briskly. “This is Ellen.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re having a very good morning at all!”

It was Harriet, her ex-boyfriend’s younger sister. They had stayed friends after Ellen and Jon broke up.

Harriet was a tiny, brittle, bossy woman, and very occasionally her somewhat malicious conversation was exactly what Ellen felt like, in the same way that she sometimes found herself oddly craving the bitter taste of black licorice.

But right now, the sound of Harriet’s slightly nasal voice shredded Ellen’s nerves like a cheese grater.

She took a deep bracing breath as though she was about to run up a steep hill and said, “How are you, Harriet?”

“Fine, fine, just thought I’d call for a chat. It’s been months.”

Only Harriet would think that seven-thirty on a Monday morning was a good time for a chat.

“Yes, yes, too long,” said Ellen, and let her eyes briefly close. She felt an absurd desire to scream.

Whenever she spoke to Harriet, Jon suddenly jumped to the front of her consciousness. She could hear his voice in the similar speech patterns of Harriet’s voice. She could see his heavy-lidded half smile, half sneer. Harriet reminded her that Jon still existed.

She preferred to be bright and bubbly and moving full steam ahead with her life when she talked to Harriet so that the appropriate messages would get back to Jon. (She knew that Harriet would make sure she mentioned every conversation to Jon. That’s what she did: collected information and then shared it around, little pellets of power.) Ideally, Ellen should mention Patrick right now (Have you heard? Ellen has a new boyfriend), but she didn’t have the energy to give him the enthusiasm he deserved.

“How’s Jon?” she said instead. Let’s bring him out on center stage, instead of letting him lurk about in the corners of this conversation.

“Funny you should mention him. You’re not going to believe this, but my eternal bachelor of a brother is getting married. We’re all in a state of shock. Can you believe it?”

“No,” said Ellen. She cleared her throat. “Goodness.”

She had lived with Jon for four years and the word “marriage” had never been mentioned. It had been her understanding that he didn’t believe in the institution, and it never seemed to occur to him to ask how Ellen felt about it. In fact, he just didn’t believe in marriage to her.

Her feelings were quite badly hurt. She actually felt them break, like a row of fragile porcelain cups that had exploded all at once. There were shards of pain flooding her body; tiny ones prickling her sinuses, a huge sharp one lodged in her chest. Oh, for heaven’s sake, you don’t care! You’re in love with another man! You’re properly in love for the first time! You don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care. Except she did.

“He’s only known this girl for a few months,” continued Harriet. “She’s a dental hygienist.”

A few months. After just a few months. Maybe Jon was properly in love for the first time. And it was fine that Ellen had never properly loved Jon (as she now realized), but it was not fine that Jon had never properly loved her. Why? Because she was the nice one!

“Anyway, we’re sure it won’t last,” said Harriet. Her voice faltered a little, as if she was pulling back now that the damage was done.

Had she deliberately called first thing on a Monday, when any normal person’s defenses are down, to pass on this information just to hurt her? She must have known it wasn’t going to be welcome news, and yet Ellen knew that Harriet was genuinely fond of her.

“Oh, well, I hope for their sake that it does.” Ellen was impressed with the cool, detached tone of her voice. “Listen, Harriet, can I call you back another time? I’m having one of those mornings. I’m out of milk, and I woke up in such a bad mood.”

“Touch of PMT?” said Harriet. She’d always been one of those women far too happy to talk about her menstrual cycle.

“Just got out of the wrong side of the bed,” said Ellen.

She put down the phone and cried. Harsh, jagged, angry sobs. It was ridiculous. It was way out of proportion.

“This is your ego,” she said out loud. Her voice sounded loud, childish and broken in the kitchen. “This is just your ego.”

She could think of nothing worse than to be married to Jon. She did not miss him. It had taken a long time for her to reinstall her personality after he’d systematically taken it apart, making her doubt her every thought.

He was a selfish, pompous, egocentric, nasty man. She did not want to be married to him, but she did not want him to marry someone else. She did not want him, but she wanted him to want her.

It was stupid and immature and yet there it was, she couldn’t seem to wrestle control of her feelings. She cried and cried. It was an orgy of outlandish sobbing and wailing. She wanted to pick up the phone and call him. She wanted to scream, “What was wrong with me?” She wanted to see this girl. She wanted to watch them together. She wanted to listen in on their conversations.

Oh, Saskia. I understand. I know. I get it.

Finally, after much heaving of the shoulders, loud snotty sniffs and sudden fresh flurries of tears, it was over, and she felt remarkably cleansed, exhausted, shaky and pale but fine, like she’d just vomited up the last of a rancid meal.

Good Lord. How peculiar. Maybe Harriet was right and she really did have PMT, although her hormones were normally well behaved and didn’t cause such dramatic waves of feeling.

She picked up her diary to check when her period was due.

She flicked back and forth through the pages, slowly at first and then faster and faster. It wasn’t possible, was it?

Finally she put the diary back down and stared out the window of the kitchen at the sea.

I’m going to stop. I’m over it. I’m done.

Ironically, those were the actual thoughts going through my head when I went for my appointment at the hypnotist’s today.

She didn’t look that great when she opened the door to me. Her skin looked blotchy, and her hair seemed sort of lank, and there was a greasy food mark on her top. I felt quite cheered by the sight of her.