We are much better.

Later, Ellis comes over for Chip Night. He brings Hetty, Hannah and His Youngest.

Ellis’s Youngest and Maisie rush outside. They call over the wall to Billie and whoop across the gardens to Archie and Morag.

The children climb across the boundary walls and vault fences, they drop down through Elder Trees and push through Ceonothus Hedges until they all end up in The Perfect Doctors’s garden where they play in the Giant Pit that the Doctor’s have dug to remove the roots of the felled sycamore next to their house.

The Giant Pit is a real draw for children.

Ellis and me go to buy chips from the Chinese Chip Shop Man. and My Mother makes Salad Niciose with Tilapia instead of Tuna because we think it’s greener. We adults can’t eat chips because we have to drink wine and to do both would be sartorial suicide.

Ellis tells us that he is still in love with the Artist With the Tiny Feet.

He says, ‘I fell asleep on the sofa next to the Artist and at no point did he make a move. What shall I do?’

And he says, ‘Did you know that we are the most observed nation in the whole world, that we are all under surveillance all the time?’ Ellis is good at non-sequitors.

Then he says ‘Have you seen that Banksy next to Waterstones in Russell Square? It’s brilliant ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ It says. Who is watching us and why?’

‘What shall I do about the Artist?’ he says.

My mother says that Ellis is very attractive and that frankly some men are hopeless at picking up subtle hints like falling asleep next to them on the sofa and that Ellis should bite the bullet and ask the artist to sleep with him.

Ellis agrees but says he simply hasn’t the courage.

John comes home and he says he thinks CCTV is a waste of money and that Banksy is ‘So over.’

Sometimes I think John spends too much time talking to very young PRs.

Friday 23rd May 2008. Wedding !!

Ellie’s parents are getting married today. This is very exciting. We haven’t been to a wedding for ages.

A few days ago, Ellie’s mother, Melinda, rang.

‘Hi,’ she said ‘Ross and I are getting married. Will you and John be able to come? It’s on Friday. Will John be able to get the day off?’

‘Wow!’ I said ‘Why?’ I said ‘Of course we’ll come.’ I said.

Melinda said it was purely financial. Then she said it wasn’t really. Then she said that she had found a beautiful dress in Islington and that she needed to find some shoes to match and that did I eat fish because afterwards everyone was going to Morgan M for lunch and could we come to a party in the evening as well? She also said that she and Ross hadn’t told Ellie yet because they thought it might freak her out a bit.

This is such fun, but I am worried about Ellie.

Abigail tells me that Ellie has worked out that her parents are getting married and that she is very confused that they haven’t told her. She found a few e-mails and caught the tail-end of a few conversations and worked the whole thing out.

‘She is feeling a bit upset, frankly.’ says Abigail.

I phone Ellie.

‘Ellie’ I say ‘They will tell you, they will want you to come. They are just being protective that’s all. Don’t be cross. Parents are always making mistakes. The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions’. I say. I am not sure that was the right thing to say.

Ellie’s not sure either.

Later in the week Abigail tells me that Ellie’s parents have told her and that she was cross and now she isn’t at all cross and is going to take lots of photographs.

The wedding is in the Town Hall. I am wearing my Royal Garden Party Outfit with a Black Straw Hat from Fenwicks with feathers in it and orange shoes. I might be overdressed but I think, if in doubt... overdress. There is nothing quite so Dull as looking Understated.

At the Town Hall, John and I realise that we are almost the only friends that have been asked and that almost everyone else is Family and we feel quite shy.

Ellie rushes up looking sparklingly beautiful and welcomes us.

Ross and Melinda arrive. Melinda wears a silver dress and looks very gorgeous.

Ross and Melinda get married.

Ross’s mother recites from memory...

Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I being poor, I have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet,

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Ross’s mother speaks in the softest Irish accent which is one of the very best accents for poetry and I am very moved and I look at John. He is very moved too.

We go to Morgan M.

I sit opposite John and between Ellie’s stepbrother and a slender Brazilian girl.

Morgan M is a Very Posh French restaurant. Ross and Melinda have hired the whole thing.

All Ross’s brothers are here. One is a Cardiologist with 8 children. His wife is a Gynacologist so she probably was quite good at dealing with tha Awful After-Effects of having 8.

Melinda’s father is here and her twin brother. John and I have a very nice time talking to the Brazilian girl who is married to Ross’s cousin. I have fun talking to Ellie’s Step Brother. He is very sweet and funny and he tells me that he is glad Ellie has a new boyfriend because he had to sit on his hands to stop himself punching the last one.

The food is amazing and we drink too much wine.

Later john and I fall asleep on our bed. We are not very good at drinking during the day. We have to go to the Wedding Party this evening and we are glad of the rest. Luckily my mother is still with us and she feeds Maisie and rolls her eyes at us. She is coming to the Party too.

The Party is heaving.

Everyone is here. Fran and Bill have come from Hampstead. Claire has come alone as Paul has gone to Australia to sort out a complex part of his father’s estate. Abigail and Ellie and their friend, Abigail R. are here too and Bella comes but she goes home quite soon because it’s all Too Much. Claire does some Karaoke with Abigail R’s mother. Maisie talks to Bill, she loves Bill. Abigail falls asleep in a heap. One of Ross’s brothers says he can’t remember who he is.

Melinda stands still and serene, talking to people, she looks very beautiful and happy.

Ross and Melinda have gone to Paris on Honeymoon. They will live happily ever after.

Insomnia. April / May 2008.

I worry, just before I get out of bed in the morning, that John will turn to me, do a double take, and say:

‘Oh my God! What’s happened to your face?’ because unlike Dorian Grey I do not have a picture corrupting in the attic and like Macbeth I feel I have a face like ‘a book where men may read strange matters’ - liberal doses of Botox notwithstanding.

The ‘strange matters’ concerned are copious quantities of wine coupled with absolutely no sleep, and don’t tell me that’s not going to become apparent at some point.

Last night I awoke at 5, and the night before and before and the one before that, spiralling backwards all through May and April.

Once or twice I think I slept til 7.30 or 8 but mostly I didn’t.

Sometimes, if it is warm enough, I get up at 5 and empty the dishwasher make Zac a cooked breakfast and do all the ironing, but, normally, because it is cold, I lie in the gathering light listening to the birds shouting and the milkman crashing about. I just lie there with my eyes shut telling myself elaborate stories and pretending that they are dreams.

My best story is that I have lunch with my Publisher and my Agent at Bibendum and that my Agent talks about a Bidding War and thrashes out a Deal, but as I have never met a Publisher or an Agent or been to Bibendum this is quite a labour intensive dream and I sometimes lose momentum.... If that happens, I end up thinking about why the drainpipe from the roof always overflows in heavy rain and pours water down the side of the house and how much I should think that matters and whether it might be the cause of the damp patch on the sitting room wall and whether I really ought to get up right now and see if I can push the hosepipe down the drain pipe and unblock it - if it is, indeed, blocked.

That story is very unhelpful and usually wakes me up properly, at which point I realise that Buddy is sitting on my head, purring, and that John is snoring, a bit, and that there is a funny creeping noise downstairs and that actually it’s nearly 6 and I might as well go and shove a hose pipe about the place as lie here and worry about damp bricks.

All this is very inconvenient and I am sure will begin to ruin my looks and turn a Brain, already compromised, to Mush and that John will indeed, wake one day to see that there is absolutely nothing going on behind my bloodshot eyes.

But, as I believe to the pits of my heart ‘One crowded hour of life is worth an age without a name,’ - even at 5 in the morning - there is very little that can done about it.

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O, fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

When the grass is as soft as the breasts of doves

And shivering sweet to the touch?

O, why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

Down the road she went between high granite hedges splashed fuschia with fuschia and orange with mombretia. Loud as a kingcup, big as a bull, yellow clad, undulating like a great perambulating duvet.

She didn’t know where she was going. She had never walked so far as an adult but she hoped in her heart that the road would take her down to the sea.

Down to a little rocky cove she would go, where she would take off her big yellow dress and step naked into the pellucid water, light as a feather Caressed for the very first time, she would slide on the green slimy rocks, popping seaweed beneath her feet, watching the anemones wave their rusty tentacles in the glimmering depths.

‘Goodbye, goodbye’.... they would wave as she sank beneath the oil dark swell and the water would close over her head. Safe.

‘Goodbye.’

It was hot and soon her thighs began to chafe, she adjusted her gait slightly, rocking as she walked. Sweat stood out on her brow and her lungs wheezed like a pair of leaky bellows.

Wrens whistled excitedly in the scented, stunted gorse. The road twisted up and to the left ahead of her.

Up, was surely not the way to the sea and she feared someone would come and take her back soon. The thought was unnerving, she increased her pace looking left and right for a gateway to duck into should she hear a car. She needed the sea. There must be no going back now. She must not be stopped.

A trickle of sweat ran between her breasts and the sun thumped down on the narrow grey road creating mirages - cool pools of water that vanished as she passed. A flight of crows roared overhead and she cowered instinctively. There were spies everywhere. Perhaps it was time to leave the road, to cut across country. She could squeeze through gaps in bramble hedges, clamber over a granite stile, pick pink campions to scatter on the cool cleansing waves.

Goodbye.

At the top of the hill she stood to catch her breath for a minute gazing down across the fields. The land unfurled at her feet and the thin grey ribbon of road twisted on and down. The sea glittered beyond, just a thin silver line, but it beckoned. She couldn’t remember when she had last seen the sea. She bent and took off her shoes. They were sensible, beige and laced. Wide fitting. Her feet were slashed with red, not wide fitting enough it seemed. Most things weren’t.

A woman like her had to wear sensible shoes they’d said and they had chosen these for her. She regarded them for a minute with acute dislike and suddenly reckless, threw them with a little gasp over the hedge behind her. She had chosen the dress herself, not prettily cut but, Oh, what a colour!

Downhill was easier, a passing car made her heart leap in her throat, but the driver, German and bespectacled, waved cheerily, thanking her for cramming her bulk against a bramble bush that hung from the hedge like a curtain, red studded with unripe berries. The car passed, missing her bare toes by inches.

Out from under the trees she came, bold as a sunflower, rocking from side to side and blowing heavily.She passed some small granite cottages with salt blasted doors their gardens festooned with fishing nets.

A black quay cut the sea in half. Near to, it was turbulent, dark, crashing, beyond, green and still and the sky above filled the heart and the eye from the top of the world to the horizon like gauze.

The yellow dress billowed and snapped like a sail in the breeze that blew off the water. Her hair, cut sensibly short, whipped off her forehead. She breathed deep.

To the sea she would go. Out there, past the fishing boats she would climb round and down. There would be a way,she would find it, down to a rocky cove.

She would put her feet in the cool water. She would take off her dress and unhook her great grey bra with it’s biting straps, she would strip off her knickers, grey too..and heavy and hurl them high in the sky.

‘Goodbye!’

John drove me, Evil and Maisie to Paddington. This is always a Bad Idea.

John tried to avoid the Congestion Charging zone. King’s Cross snarled up like you wouldn’t beleive, and we hit the Red Wave on Marylebone Road. As we approached, each set of traffic lights turned red in perfect time, one following another. Dispatch riders carved us up on their Hondas, their Moto Guzzis and their BMWs. . Evil began to whimper. John said,

‘There’s plenty of time.’

I went off Boris Johnson as a Bendy Bus got stuck on a corner and took up three lanes. A Black cab driver leaned on his horn. Road Works sporting orange plastic bunting lay abandoned near Madame Taussauds.

‘ Never ever drive me anywhere ever again.’ I said.

‘It’ll be fine.’ said John.

In the back of the car, Maisie rolled her eyes and hugged Evil close to her chest.

We arrived at Paddington with seconds to spare. John got in the wrong lane and drove right past. ‘No U Turns’ said a sign angrily.

‘Do a U Turn ! I yelped as we roared up Praed Street and swerved into the Congestion Charging Zone.

‘If you were going to do that, you might as well have done it half an hour ago and given me an outside chance of catching a train today !’ I shouted. ‘Look, let me and Maisie get out. We can walk from here.’ I said. Blood was pumping in my ears and I kept forgetting to breath.

‘You do realise that people like me are constitutionally unable to be late don’t you?’ I shrieked.

‘What do you mean “People Like You” said John ‘There are no other “People Like You.” John hauled the car round in a U Turn. A Black Cab Driver leaned on his horn. I think it was the same one.

‘She means People Who Are Really Fussy.’ said Maisie, helpfully from the back seat.

John drove the car down the ramp to the station in the Taxis Only lane.

Maisie and I leaped out. We hauled our suitcase. Luckily it has wheels. Evil gets tangled in her lead. Luckily I already have a ticket. The train is leaving in two minutes.

‘You’ll be fine.’ said John ‘Bye.’ He drove away trying to look like a Mini Cab Driver who has forgotten his Private Hire sticker.

Maisie and me run for the train. The guard is shutting the doors beginning at the front. Suddenly Evil stops on the clean shiny platform and does a giant pooh.

I really hate dogs.