“Please!” I say desperately, trying to dodge through the bus queue. “Let me by! I need to get away from that nun!”
A burly guy in jeans glances at me, then at Sister Agnes—then he sticks out his arm to block her path.
“Leave her alone!” he bellows at Sister Agnes. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be a nun, thought of that? Bloody religious nutters!” Then he turns to me. “You get away, girl. You run!”
“Run!” chimes in a nearby girl, laughing. “Run for your life!”
Run for my life. That’s what it feels like. My heart pumping, I pick up speed and get through the crowd. Now I’m sprinting along the pavement with only one aim: to escape. Get away from … everything. I have no idea where I’m heading, apart from away … away …
And then, with no warning, everything goes black.
Three
The humiliation. The humiliation of your mum being called away from a viewing of a four-bedroom semi in Bracknell because you had a flip-out at work and ran straight into a brick wall.
I’ll swear that wall came out of nowhere. I’ll swear that corner didn’t used to be there. One minute I was running as though wildebeest were after me, then next minute I was on the ground with people staring down at me and blood trickling into my eye.
Now it’s five hours later. I’ve been released from A&E and my forehead is still sore. I’ve also had a “chat” with my GP over the phone. I explained the whole story and she listened quietly and asked me a load of questions about my mood and thoughts and sleep patterns. Then she said, “I think you would do well to have a break,” and signed me off work for three weeks. It turns out I get a week’s sick leave at full pay, so that’s a silver lining.
“But then what?” I look despairingly at Mum, who came to the hospital and escorted me back home in an Uber. “I’m in a lose–lose. If I go back to the office: nightmare. But if I just walk out like Lina, I’ll be unemployed. Nightmare.”
“You’re burned out, darling.” Mum puts a cool hand on mine. “You need to think about getting better. For now, don’t make any big decisions about your job. Just rest and relax. Then worry about everything else.”
She sits down, hitching up her tailored work trousers and glancing at her Apple watch as she does so. Mum became an estate agent after Dad died, and it suits her down to the ground, because it’s basically one big authorized gossip. “The vendors spent a thousand pounds on the kitchen splashbacks alone.” Or “The couple require a master bedroom with soundproofing capability.” She gets paid to relay nuggets like that. I mean, she’d do it for free.
“I had a little word with that hospital doctor,” Mum continues. “Very sensible woman. She said she thought you needed a proper, complete rest. It’s social media I blame,” she adds darkly.
“Social media?” I peer at her. “I hardly ever go on social media. I don’t have time.”
“Modern pressures,” reiterates Mum firmly. “Instagram. TikTok.”
“I will just say one word,” says my aunt Pam, coming in with three cups of tea. She pauses meaningfully. “Menopause.”
Oh my God. Save me now. Pam recently became a menopause coach, and she’s obsessed. “I don’t think it’s the menopause,” I say politely. “I’m only thirty-three.”
“Don’t suffer through denial, Sasha.” Pam gazes at me earnestly. “Maybe you’re perimenopausal. Are you having hot flushes?”
“No,” I say patiently. “But thank you for asking about my body temperature every time we meet.”
“I make your body temperature my business, my love,” Pam says impassionedly, “because nobody talks about menopause! Nobody talks about it!” She looks around the room as though disappointed the sofa hasn’t shared its menopause symptoms.
“I don’t think the menopause is the point, Pam,” says Mum tactfully. “Not in Sasha’s case.” She turns to me. “The point is, we must get you some proper R and R. Now, darling, you can come home with me, but I’m having the bathroom done and it is a little bit noisy. But Pam says you can go to her house, if you don’t mind the parrots. Isn’t that right, Pam?”
I don’t mind the parrots, but I’m not living with the menopause coaching.
“The parrots might be a bit much,” I say hastily. “If I’m trying to rest or whatever.”
“I’m sure Kirsten would have you—”
“No.” I cut her off. “Don’t be silly.”
My sister has a baby and a toddler, and her mother-in-law is living in the spare bedroom for a bit while she has her heating repaired. It’s chocka there.
“I don’t need to go anywhere. It’s fine. I can stay here. Chill out. Rest.”
“Hmm.” Mum looks around the flat. “Is this restful, though?”
We all silently take in my unlovely little sitting room. As though to prove the point, a lorry clatters by outside and a dead leaf falls off a plant. I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket and take it out to see Kirsten is calling.
“Oh, hi,” I say, standing up and heading out to the hall. “How are you?”
“Sasha, what the hell!” she exclaims. “You ran into a brick wall?”
I can tell she’s on speakerphone, and I picture her in her small, bright kitchen, wearing the cable-knit sweater I gave her for Christmas, holding a wriggling baby Ben on her knee while feeding apple slices to Coco.
“It was by mistake,” I explain defensively. “I didn’t line myself up and hurl myself at a brick wall for kicks. It just loomed up.”
“Walls don’t just loom up.”
“Well, this one did.”
“Were you on something?”
“No!” I retort defensively, because that’s what the doctors kept asking too. “I was just … preoccupied.”
“Mum says the doctor’s signed you off for stress. I thought you looked stressed out at Christmas, and that’s weeks ago.” She adds, “I said you needed a holiday.”
“I know you did. Anyway, I’ve got three weeks off. So. How are Ben and Coco?”
“Running into walls isn’t ideal, you know,” says Kirsten, ignoring my attempt to deflect the conversation. “Why were you running, anyway?”
“I was trying to escape from a nun.”
“A nun?” She sounds flabbergasted. “What kind of nun?”
“You know. The nun kind. Veil. Cross. All that. I thought I might join a convent,” I add, “but it all went a bit wrong.”
The whole thing seems like a bit of a dream now.
“You thought you might join a convent?” Kirsten’s laugh explodes in my ear.
“I know it sounds stupid. It just seemed like … the easiest way out. Of everything.”
There’s another silence except for the distant sound of Coco singing a tuneless kind of non-song.
“Sasha, you’re worrying me now,” says Kirsten more quietly. “The ‘easiest way out of everything’?”
“I didn’t mean that,” I say at once. “Not that.” I pause, because, hand on heart, I’m not sure what I did mean. “I just felt overwhelmed. Life sometimes feels … impossible.”
“Oh, Sasha.” My big sister’s voice is suddenly soft and kind, like a hug down the line, and out of nowhere I feel tears gathering.
“Sorry.” I try to pull myself together. “Look, I know becoming a nun isn’t the answer. I’m having three weeks off work.”
“Doing what? Just sitting at home?”
“Unclear. Pam says she’ll have me to stay,” I offer quickly, before Kirsten makes some valiant offer to squash me into her house.
“Pam’s there? Has she asked you about hot flushes yet?” I can tell Kirsten’s trying to cheer me up.
“Of course.”
“She can’t leave it, can she? Every time I had morning sickness with Ben, she said, ‘It might be the menopause, Kirsten, don’t rule it out.’ ”
I can’t help laughing, even as a tear rolls down my face. God, I’m a wreck.
“Sasha! I have the solution!” From the sitting room, Mum’s loud, urgent voice summons me. “The perfect solution!”
“I heard that,” says Kirsten in my ear. “Text me the perfect solution when Mum’s shared it with you. But it’s not buying a two-bed in Bracknell, if that’s what she says.”