‘Yes, Cas.’ He thumps the desk and suddenly turns serious. ‘Ratings are all I think about. And up until recently, when you fell in lurve, that’s all you thought about.’

Slapped face. Even this repulsive cliché knew more about me than I did. I don’t think there’s any point in my trying to explain that the cost of ratings rocketing is hearts plummeting.

‘You let us down, Cas. Running up north after that hippie gypsy. Coming back with loads of mumbo-jumbo ideas on emotionally profitable programmes. You’re a disappointment.’

‘Just because Darren isn’t a materialistic, hedonistic, Fascist, that does not make him a hippie gypsy,’ I yell back. I think about it for a moment and then add, ‘And anyway what’s wrong with hippie gypsies?’

Bale and Fi roar with laughter. Her boobs and his belly bounce up and down as their laughter ricochets around their bodies. I stay still.

‘I expect this type of thing from you, Bale, but you, Fi – you’ve surprised me. How could you do this to me?’ Fi stares back, insolent and unashamed. ‘You knew that Josh and Darren would both be hurt and that I’d become public property.’

‘Yeah, I heard that Dazza did a runner,’ sneers Bale. ‘Bad luck, Cas.’

‘Still, look on the bright side,’ comments Fi. ‘There’s been so much publicity about your abilities in the sack that, besides Darren, absolutely every man in the country wants to shag you.’

‘And the bright side is?’

‘Oh, come on, Cas. You’ve never been one to turn down a shag.’

‘No,’ I sigh and rub my forehead. ‘Not in the past.’ I’m sick of the small talk. ‘Well, as jolly as it is passing pleasantries with the pair of you, I think it’s time I got to the point. I’m resigning.’

‘Accepted. I was going to fire you, for your recurring absences without doctor’s certificates, but then we’d have to negotiate severance pay. It’s so much cleaner this way. Although not as financially advantagous to you,’ he taunts.

I don’t care about the money. I turn to Fi.

‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Fi. I thought you were going to have to fuck Bale to gain his favour. Instead all you had to do is fuck me. Good choice – I’m far prettier.’

I let the door slam behind me.

I walk out of the office, past my desk. I don’t even bother to empty my cupboards. I walk to the lift, through the reception and keep walking out of the door.

And I surprise myself, because as the door swings behind me, I feel better than I’ve felt for a long time.

So I get my hair cut. All off.

‘My God, your hair!’ squeals my mother when I pop round to see her and Bob on Thursday night.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not an act of self-loathing or penitence. I just wanted… I don’t know… a change.’

My mother looks as though she’s about to cry and so I’m grateful when Bob says, ‘It’s very fetching, Cas.’ Bob’s OK, quite a decent bloke, once you look past the brown cords.

‘Thanks.’ I force a smile across the fish fingers and beans. I see him gently nudge my mother.

‘Well, I expect it’s a good idea to herald a new beginning,’ she stutters heroically. ‘You might shake the press for a day or two.’

My head’s much lighter – I estimate that my hair weighed pounds – but my heart is still heavy. After supper I turn down the offer to stay the night and hurry to catch the tube.

I spend the next day on the telephone. I re-call Darren’s mobile, flat, lab and office. No joy. I make a list of National Parks and call each one of them to see if he’s working with any. He’s not. I then start on London’s parks and when I still don’t unearth him I try twenty or thirty others up and down the country. There are plenty of sick trees but Darren’s not ministering to any of them. I walk the streets hoping to spot him. It’s futile. I then gather my courage and call the Smiths in Whitby.

His father answers the phone.

‘Hello, Mr Smith. You probably don’t remember me.’ I had the impression that my stay at the Smith household passed Mr Smith by. I was merely an interlude between Countdown and the chat shows. ‘It’s Cas Perry. I’m a friend of Darren’s. A sort of friend.’ Somewhere between archenemy and fiancée.

‘Hello, pet, of course I remember you. When you came on the telly, I said, “Wasn’t she the one who was up here, chasing our Darren?” And Mother said I was right.’

I’m a bit stuck for what to say next. The fact that Mr Smith referred to my ‘chasing’ Darren is bad enough but my worst fear is confirmed: Darren’s family saw the show.

‘I’ve seen your picture in the paper, too.’

Marvellous.

‘Well, I was just ringing – it’s a bit awkward really. You see, I need to talk to Darren and I can’t find him.’

‘Aye.’

‘Well, erm, I was wondering if you’d know where he is.’

‘Aye.’

‘And whether you’d tell me.’ I cross my fingers. In fact, they’ve been crossed for days now, which makes it very difficult to hold a cup of hot coffee and almost impossible to tie my trainers.

‘Well, that’s something else. I’m not sure I can do that. I’ll have to ask Mother. Mother,’ he bellows.

I have a vision of Mrs Smith running along the corridor in a waft of baking smells and fury. I am terrified and want to put the phone down. But if I do I’ll never find Darren. Mr Smith has put his hand over the handset but even so I can still distinguish distinctive wrathful mutterings: ‘No better than she ought to be, the cheek of her, I’ll give her what for.’ I am paralyzed with fear and now can’t put the phone down, even if I wanted to.

‘Yes?’ she barks. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Cas Perry.’ Meek.

‘Who?’ Insincere.

‘Cas Perry, Darren’s friend.’ Tentative.

‘Hardly!’ Outraged.

‘Mrs Smith, I can imagine how angry you are—’

‘Oh, you can, can you?’ She sniffs. ‘I doubt it.’

‘But I really do need to talk to Darren,’ I persist.

Silence. I can hear the cogs of her mind whirl round.

‘I won’t help you.’

The phone goes dead and I’m left with the cold, continuous tone that tells me no one wants to speak to me.

I wonder if he is there? Perhaps he was in the yard kicking a ball around with Richard. Oblivious to the telephone wires that I am trying to crawl through to reach him. Or perhaps he did know I was on the phone and just didn’t care.

Saturday is red hot. The sun is pouring in through my windows. Insensitively cheerful. I consider that this is the fine weather I hoped I’d wake up to on my wedding day; now the sun’s mocking me. I pull down the blinds. I look around my flat and try to think of something to do to while away the next fifty-odd years. Throughout the last few days I have tidied, ordered, arranged and rearranged every aspect of my life. My cereal packets are arranged in descending size order, my knickers are arranged in colour and date purchased order, my cosmetic bottles are separated into sections – face, body and hands, and then subdivided by brand, and my CDs are alphabetically categorized. Everywhere I look is tidy, neat and trim. It’s ironic that I know exactly where to locate the list of who I sent Christmas cards to in 1995, but I’ve no clue as to where to find my fiancé.

Besides the physical tidying up, I’ve had time to do a bit of mental cleaning out, too. I’ve written a list of the things that have gone wrong. Or more specifically, and much more humbling, the things I’ve done wrong. I approached my list methodically, subdividing my crimes into categories: ‘Darren’, ‘Mum’, ‘friends’, ‘work’, ‘lovers’, and an all-encompassing ‘general’. The same themes recur in each section. I’ve selfishly pursued my own peace of mind, ruthlessly trampling on the feelings of others. Worse, I’ve justified my behaviour by sulkily holding a grudge against my parents for having the audacity to make their own decisions and live their own lives. I think of Fi’s question, asked in some grotty pub after we’d both become careless with alcohol. ‘Couldn’t you have just, I don’t know, muddled along like the rest of us?’ Yes, in retrospect I suppose I could have. Should have. After all, I was given enough chances. Why didn’t I see that my mother was teaching me about love, not restraint? She loved me so much that she put me before anyone else for years. Why did I have to resent that and see it as a pressure? I had amazing friends, and how did I repay them? By bossing one and using, then humiliating, the other. Issie’s and my friendship is held together by a very slight thread right now. I know that the only way I can possibly hope to keep her as a friend is to learn to deal honestly and fairly. Josh, my dearest friend, is lost for ever. I can’t see how either of us can ever recover from this. Too much hurt pride on his side. Too much shame on mine. I used my power at work childishly, thoughtlessly. I was so heady on the success of ever-increasing ratings and advertising billings that I was blinkered to the destruction the programme was wreaking. I now force myself to consider every aspect: from the woman weeping in my reception on Christmas Eve to the silk farm that had to close down after their exports decreased so significantly. I wonder how many lives I altered the course of with Sex with an Ex? Was it fair to involve myself, and the general public, in people’s loving and living? Would those people have muddled up the aisle if it hadn’t been for my intervention? And if they had, would it necessarily have ended in disaster, as I’d always maintained? Perhaps it was unfair putting such emotional pressure on individuals just before their weddings. Perhaps it hadn’t been a flat playing field. I realize now that Sex with an Ex was not much more than an elaborate way to try to prove that my father was the rule rather than the exception.