89. Someone you will eventually have to leave

Lately I have been preoccupied with escape. I'm not sure what I want to escape but it's impossible to mistake the tendency in my imagination.

When I watch thrillers, or read books about people in peril, when I see news stories about women captured and kept prisoner, I find myself imagining how I'd escape, and how I'd disappear, and how I'd stay disappeared.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a good example. If I was Ana, how would I escape from Christian? Because, eventually, she's going to have to. Anyone who gives you a mobile phone, uses it to clandestinely track your movements, and then swoops in to confront you when you are doing an activity they have unilaterally “forbidden”, is someone you will eventually have to leave. It doesn't matter how much you love them. And this man, this man will not take that well. She'll be lucky if she doesn't end up stuffed on display in the Red Room.

So, the sadistic billionaire with all his Master of the Universe power and money at his disposal is obsessed with keeping your prisoner. How would you escape?

Like everything else, you can type “how to disappear” into Google and get a lot of hits. I'm clearly not the only one who wants to do it.

If you really wanted to vanish there are manuals, whole websites. The first thing you need to do is close your bank accounts and use cash for your travels and expenses. Cards are trackable, so cut them up. Use public transport, not cars. Cut your hair. Dye your hair. If you're a man, grow a beard. If you are a woman, get contact lenses if you wear glasses and plain non-prescription glasses if your eyesight's good. Wear a bright jacket or headscarf when you're getting your money out or buying tickets. Sounds a bit odd, I know, but if someone later asks for a description people will remember the colour, not your face. Avoid anything which will leave a paper or computer trail. Delete all your social networks and email addresses. Get casual cash in hand work.

…..But I don't want to disappear! Not completely. I want Amanda and Gin. I want Sally. I want Rammstein, how could I take Rammstein on the run? It would be cruel to him, and I couldn't give him to anyone else; he might end up abandoned, tipped out of a car onto a motorway shoulder and left cold and hungry to fend for himself. What about all my plants, who'd take care of them? I want to be able to buy my morning latte from the cafe on the way to work. I want to drink margaritas in the sunshiny garden of my favourite cocktail bar. I want to see Martin DJ again. I want my life.

I guess it comes down to a basic psychological fact – just like the rest of humanity in general, I want all the things I want and not the things I don't want.

But it's not possible to live a life which is made up entirely of things you want. Not even if you have enough money to give up work and build walls, all the alarm systems and doormen and first-rate security and barrages of lawyers.

Sometimes things you think you want, things you welcome into your life, turn into things you absolutely don't want. For example, my relationship - or whatever it is - with Chris. It's too late now. I wished for Chris, I wished for him with all my heart, and the universe gave him to me, and now I have to live with however my wish plays out.

It would be so sterile. A life without other people. So lonely. We aren't meant to live that way, but the deal is that other people are unpredictable, they all have their own opinions and obsessions and madnesses, and by accepting them into our lives we have to accept a lack of control over what they bring with them and sometimes it would be so nice not to have to do that.

My phone pings. It's Amanda. As if to reinforce the point, it simply says: CUNT!

It's hard to tell what brought this expletive on without more information, but my guess would be a shop assistant has just been rude to her. Either that, or she's telepathically sensed my mood and is attempting to bring me back down to earth. Or it was meant for someone else. Who knows?

There was another bunch of roses outside the door this morning. Bright yellow, with red blushing through the petals. Beautiful. A blank card again.

I wish I had enough money to move.