63. Flamingo-pink hip flask

It is 8.30am on Saturday. Amanda and I are sitting on a bench in the park, sharing vodka out of Amanda's flamingo-pink hip flask. We have not yet been to bed. We are admiring the floral clock.

"What are those little shaggy orange flowers?" asks Amanda. "They're pretty. They'd make a good cover-up." (Amanda has a anatomically correct tattoo of a vagina on the right side of her ribcage, just above her hip. It's so detailed that when the light hits it the right way it looks real. She got it when she was 20 and now regrets it.)

"I don't know," I say.

Amanda takes another swig of her vodka and looks sideways at me.

"How are you?" she asks. "I mean, after the whole weird thing with that guy."

"Okay," I say. I look down at my shoes. Scuffed grey satin, diamante buckles. I notice one of the stones has fallen out of the left buckle. I'll have to figure out where to get a replacement.

"You don't seem okay," Amanda remarks. "If I may say so."

There is a weed growing in the gravel by my left toe.

"In fact, you seem pretty unhappy."

I'm not sure what to tell her. I open my mouth to speak and realise I will listen with interest to whatever it is I have to say, because I'm not sure what it is.

"I'm never sure whether I'm doing well or losing my mind," I say. "I mean, at any giving point in my life. When I sleep with someone like Chris, is that progress because I'm getting over my issues, or is it a kind of self abuse? When I have flashbacks and nightmares, when I feel anxious all the time, is that necessary because I have to work through some feelings or is it a symptom of the ongoing degeneration of my personality? Am I getting worse, or better? How much of this is to do with Matthew, and how much of it would have happened anyway? Have I  got schizophrenia?"

"Probably not," says Amanda. "You don't have any of the symptoms, and it generally comes on in the late teens to early 20s. Which, my dear, we are both well past these days. In fact, we are heading towards vintage status."

She offers me the flask. I take it. The vodka burns the back of my throat for a moment and then settles. I like the taste of neat vodka. It feels clean, antiseptic, as if it is disinfecting me.

"If you look on a long enough time line," I say, "things are always getting worse. Entropy is the prevailing force and eventually everywhere in the universe will be dark and the temperature will be absolute zero and there will be no living things left."

Amanda groans. "Don't fucking say things like that. I'm on a come-down."

"It's okay," I say. "You'll be dead long before it happens."

Amanda stands up. Her black ostrich-feather boa falls off on to the gravel. 

"Right," she says. "It's freezing and you're freaking me out. We are going back to my place. Now. I have tea, central heating, sofas and duvets, weed, chocolate cake, and every series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

This does sound attractive.

"Can we watch some of series three?" I say. "I like the Mayor."

We start walking.

"Did I tell you I broke up with Alex?" Amanda says, casually, as we leave the park. She doesn't feel casual about it.

Amanda doesn't find it easy to talk about her feelings. I've been aware that something was bothering her tonight, but she clearly didn't want to tell me about it so I left her alone until she was ready to talk. She's ready now.

"No," I say. "What happened?"

"It's hard to make connections, you know," she says. "One meets people and hopes that it could work, but a lot of the time it doesn't. It isn't easy for us..er...special people."

"It's hard for the freaky people to find love," I say. "Sure is."

"Yep. It's hard enough to try and get with someone you like anyway, without wondering what's the right time to say 'Hey! And guess what else is up with me?'."

I giggle. The problem of when and if to bring up Matthew is one I regularly wrestle with.

She drinks some vodka.

"Pisses me off," she says. "You hear all the time about how it's cool to be different and everyone wants to stand out. You and me, Alice, we've got "different" coming out of our asses here and all we get is grief. There are days when I think how easy, how sweet it could be if we could just be normal. Just be...I don't know. Never have to think about how you come over. Just walk into a pub without wondering whether this is the night you're going to get raped and stabbed up because you've challenged someone just by existing."

She pauses.

"It's been four years since I met anyone I liked that much," she says and the sadness in her voice makes me feel like crying myself. I reach out and take her hand. 

62. Lawns like green velvet

*I am on holiday for the next two Sundays, so there won't be another Contact update until June 30*

It is 1am. I am walking home from Sally's. My route takes me through one of the most expensive parts of town. The houses are set back from the road and screened by trees. In the daytime you can see glimpses of lawns like green velvet and gleaming cars parked carelessly on wide gravel drives. Now, in the dark, all you can see is the occasional lit window.

It's like a glimpse into another world, where everything is clean and there's always time and money for everything you want. Like the worlds you see on TV, the huge clean kitchens and gleaming wine-glasses, the vast bed with sheets that are always crisp and white.

After the London riots happened some sections of the public were vocal in criticising the rioters for their motives, which appeared to be mostly personal gain. New trainers, new televisions, new clothes. It did not surprise me. In our culture, which places such emphasis on possessions and consumer goods - where what you own defines who you are - it surprises me that it doesn't happen more often.

Switch on the TV and see a beautiful, clean, vital, spacious world. Switch it off, and look around at your tiny, grubby flat where nothing is ever clean. Where the kitchen is nothing more than a nook in the wall and the shower head is falling off. Switch on the TV and see the rich and successful showing off their cars, their homes, their under-floor heating and beautiful designer clothes. Switch it off and know that you will never, ever have enough money to live in that kind of luxury. Year after year after year. Show people something they want with one hand, and tell them they can't have it with the other. You do that often enough for long enough, eventually they'll just knock you down and take it.

I am interrupted from this train of thought when a tiny voice says "Hello?" from among the bushes. I stop, look round.

A Japanese girl is standing at the start of one of the gravel drives, looking at me. She is as small as a fairy, dressed all in white. A white padded jacket, a white denim skirt, white leggings, high white trainers. White furry earmuffs. Her long dark hair trails over the fur collar of the jacket.

"Can you help me?" she says. Her accent is very heavy. Maybe she's a foreign student, or perhaps on holiday.

"I'll try," I say. "What's wrong?"

She points up into the branches. I peer up. A white furry face peers back down at me from a high branch.

"I think..." she says, "he is stuck. I have been trying to call him, but he won't come. He is crying."

"Stupid cats," I mutter under my breath. I can't work out how on earth he even got up that high.

"Want down," the cat says, mournfully.

"Is he yours?" I say.

"No. I was just walking here."

We stare at the cat. I have no idea what to do. I understand that in simpler times one could call the fire brigade, but in these days of Government cuts do they still get cats out of trees? I'd be surprised if they still have the cash and resources to put out non life-threatening fires.

"Down. DOOOWN."

At that moment, a middle-aged man storms out of one of the houses opposite.

"What's going on here?" he shouts. "We have Neighbourhood Watch. You can't hang around here." He has the kind of upper-class accent which rides full-tilt over everything in its path.

The Japanese girl and I point upwards.

"Oh Christ, not bloody Minty again," says the man. "Minty, get out of the tree, you stupid animal."

Now he's realised we are not about to break into his home and steal his consumer durables, he becomes friendly, almost jovial, and as he weaves slightly and bangs into the tree I realise he's actually really very drunk. I imagine him holding forth at a dinner party, or perhaps to his wife.

"She does this every three or four weeks or so," he says. "She belongs to Clive."

"Oh," I say. "Clive."

"MINTY!" he suddenly shouts at the top of his voice, making the Japanese girl jump. "MINTY, GET OUT OF THERE!"

There is a six-foot pole of wood leaning against the tree. He picks it up and staggers around with it for a while, eventually managing to get it into the air. He beats it madly against the branches.

"This is why Clive leaves this bit of wood here," he says over his shoulder.

And the cat comes, sliding around the trunk of the tree, clinging on with its outstretched front paws like a squirrel.

"He can come down!" says the Japanese girl. She sounds insulted, and I wonder how long she has been standing there trying to coax Minty down. I feel quite insulted myself.

"Of course she can," the man says. "Stupid bloody animal."

Minty reaches the bottom and glares at us from under the rhododendrons.

61. I fall into the last category

Some people go to clubs to drink, some to pick people up. Some of us go to dance. I fall into the last category, although obviously I like to drink as well.

If I was told I couldn't drink, I'd still go to clubs. If I wasn't allowed to dance, I'd stay at home. It's one of the reasons I hate high heels (the other one being that everyone expects me to love shoes because women love shoes. Try finding a birthday card to give a woman which does not have a picture of a stiletto on it).

To be fair, I do like nice shoes. But I like being able to walk and dance much more, so I restrict my purchases to flats and the occasional inch-high heel. I'm also a big fan of the stompy biker boot, or perhaps an eye-catching trainer.

Amanda, Sally, Jena and Gin all love high heels, but for very different reasons. Amanda, who is over six feet, wears them simply to make her height even more intimidating. Sally wears them because she lives her image so intensely that she has to; high heels are part of the look she has created for herself. I suspect Gin and Jena love them because women love shoes.

It's so loud in here that I feel immersed, as if I'm swimming in music. The bass vibrates up through the soles of my feet and through my body. Once I was at a CSS gig which was so loud I saw a soundwave come out of the speaker. I saw the rest of the people around me vibrate for a moment in time to the music and I felt it pass through me, making my heart beat out of rhythm for a second and jangling my bones. I'm not sure if this is even possible. My right ear echoed with a high thin whine, like a mosquito, for the next three days.

That was a little too loud.

It's both comforting and exhilarating to feel submerged in sound like this. This is one of my favourite songs, Radio Activity by Kraftwerk. The reason I love this particular club night is because it specialises in 70s and 80s alternative - punk, post-punk, new wave - which is one of my pet genres. It only happens once every three months or so, but it's the only chance I ever get to dance to bands like Bauhaus, Gary Numan and the Psychedelic Furs and I look forward to it for days when I know it's coming up. Tonight, especially, I needed it. It's been a week and a half of fear and depression, but the pills are finally kicking in and the river of sound surrounding me sweeps everything away. 

Tonight Amanda could make it (she's not all that into the music, but she likes the general Gothy atmosphere and the abundance of heavily-pierced metal boys dancing without shirts) but I have been known to come here on my own if no-one else is free. Just to dance, just for a couple of hours.

However, it's astonishing how upset people get by the concept of a woman going to a club on her own, so I don't usually tell them I do this. Most men are not worried, probably because men are used to the idea of being able to go to places on their own if the fancy takes them. But other women get genuinely distressed and upset. They visualise rapists, abductions, murder. The truth is that if you take routine safety precautions and don't get drunk you're going to be fine. 

But I don't like to upset them. There's a lot of things I don't talk to most other women about because I'm afraid I'll upset them; my taste for porn, my intense desire to shave my head and have my skull tattooed with butterflies, my views on high heeled shoes. I lie to them about going to the taxi rank so I can walk home on my own without getting a hysterical phone call the next morning because I forgot to text them to say I was back.

The great thing about my friends (my really close friends, I mean; Amanda, Gin and Sally) is that I can talk to them about all of these things and more. I'm lucky to have them.

I look over at Amanda. She is by the bar, towering over the people around her. She's wearing white shoes decorated with a delicate sketch of an skull at the heart of a rose, and a white corset over a froth of white lace skirts ending at the knee. A pearl choker is clasped round her neck and there are white ribbons threaded through her blonde curls. Just about everyone else in the room is wearing black. This means that Amanda has managed to make all the other women in the room look like her backing singers, simply by making a clever colour choice. It makes me smile every time I look at her from a distance. 

60. I've been expecting it for a while

The crash has come. I've been expecting it for a while.

I didn't start taking my medication, because I started seeing Chris instead and I wanted to have sex with him. The prescription was still pinned to my bulletin board at 9am this morning. I'm still ill.

And I dumped Chris.

I'm not allowed to dump people. I'm also not allowed to turn them down. It says so in the corner of my mind where I store the rules, my rules. The rules say I need to have a boyfriend. The rules say that I am ugly and I don't have an attractive personality, so if someone's deluded enough to fancy me for 10 seconds I need to grab on to that with both hands and stay hanging on to him no matter what. The rules say if I don't do that, I've screwed up one of the few chances I will ever have to con other people into believing I'm a functioning and normal member of society. If I turn someone down or dump them I am refusing to take what is on offer, and that means I deserve to be punished for my own bad attitude. I ought to be grateful for any crumbs of attention.

I also know, on another level, that Chris was using me (being used is better than being single and celibate) that he was no good for me (better than nothing) that things were not going to change (I should have changed my attitude and been what he wanted and maybe he would have loved me)

I called in sick to work today and I am cowering under the duvet on the sofa, intermittently drinking tequila. Tequila - while not a solution - is at least a distraction. I have cashed in the prescription and taken the first of my pills. The symptoms will get worse for about 10 days, and then they'll start getting better. Hopefully.

YOU ARE GOING TO DIE ALONE AND CHILDLESS, YOU STUPID FAT UGLY BITCH. YOU ARE ALREADY LOSING WHAT LOOKS YOU HAVE.

Good morning to you too, Matthew.

HOW DARE YOU DUMP HIM? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? THERE WON'T BE ANYONE WHO WANTS ANYTHING MORE WITH YOU. PEOPLE ARE NOT THAT DUMB. MEN ONLY WANT YOU FOR SEX BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO OFFER, SO YOU'D BETTER TAKE WHAT YOU CAN GET.

I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life than with someone I don't love who doesn't love me.

YOU CONTRIBUTE NOTHING AND NO-ONE GIVES A SHIT IF YOU LIVE OR DIE. YOU HAVE TO KEEP PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE BECAUSE IF PEOPLE SEE THE REAL YOU THEY'LL KNOW YOU HAVE NO WORTH. YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU ARE A WASTE OF OXYGEN.

I'm not pretending anything to anyone. If I really am a vile worthless piece of crap, people will just have to fucking deal with it. This is the twenty-first century and a woman can be anything she wants.

PIECE OF ROTTEN GARBAGE.

I know you are, but what am I?

At this point Matthew falls silent. He generally does when I manage to laugh at him.

Evil doesn't have a sense of humour. It can't. It can mock others, it can imitate, it can laugh at misfortune, but true laughter and joy is beyond it. To me, evil - real evil - is a grim, humourless, unquestioning certainty of being completely in the right and completely entitled. You see it in terrorists, racists, Christians holding sandwich boards saying gay people are going to hell, the colleague who righteously tells you about the affair so and so is having with the regional manager not because it's a hilarious piece of gossip but because People Ought to Know, and people who throw red paint at women attending abortion clinics. Among others.

Evil is fanaticism - of any description, about anything, and it utterly lacks a sense of humour. Evil does not allow questions, or reasonable doubt, or innocent until proven guilty, or bad cover versions, or jokes at its own expense. Evil laughs at others, but never at itself.

I vaguely recall something to that effect being said during my brief teenage flirtation with Christianity; laugh at the devil and he disappears. If you laugh at someone, you're refusing to engage; refusing to play. You're not just levelling the playing field, you're destroying it.

This works. Sometimes it is the only thing that works, although it often makes people of this type very angry because evil needs, must, has to be taken seriously; for example, rapists don't rape because they want sex. Rape has very little to do with anything a normal person would understand as sex.

Rapists rape because they want power. They want to be scary. They want to be able to feel that they are powerful enough to take whatever they want, whenever they want it. That's the point. That's what turns them on and that's what gets them off. Feeling like they own their victims. Seeing, in a pair of terrified eyes, that they're taken seriously.

I try and laugh at Matthew whenever I can.

59. You have to specifically identify what you want

Sally and I are star-gazing.

Sally's flat is near a large cemetery. Sometimes when it's warm we picnic there, taking care to stay in the end among the Victorian tombs so we don't bother people who are mourning. At that end it doesn't need to be kept mathematically pristine in case of complaints and nature is allowed to proceed largely unbothered by humanity. It is wild and overgrown, full of tiny blue butterflies and lichen on weathered headstones, and in the spring there are carpets of primroses and bluebells. It's one of my dreams that I will be able to buy myself a plot in this part of the cemetery. I can't think of anywhere more beautiful to decay.

In the summer, we spread out Sally's gingham picnic rug under our favourite beech tree and drink white wine. We eat tiny cucumber sandwiches Sally has cut into hearts and stars, and follow them with lavender and rose macaron. We drink white wine and watch the bees getting in the columbine and buttercups. The ants pick up our sandwich crumbs and stagger around with them. Because people still retain a superstition about cemeteries and the mourners are all at the other end, we can go three or four hours without seeing another person.

On clear nights it's one of the few places in the city where it's dark enough to allow you to look at stars. At this time of year, the gates are shut and locked at half past four, but obviously this does not bother me and Sally. There are gaps in the fence if you know where to look, made by tramps and teenagers and couples looking for an al fresco shag.

"Perseus," says Sally, pointing. The stars dust the sky like sugar. They always seem clearer when it's cold.

My phone beeps. The message is from Chris. I open it.

- I'm really hurt that you would cut me off like this by voicemail and then ignore me at work. It's stressed me out and I'm having a difficult time anyway because of some personal stuff. You could have tried to talk to me about this.

I stare at the text message, frowning. I'm not sure how to respond.

When someone says to you "I feel hurt by this," that statement is all very well in itself to convey a state of mind. But it is not a tremendous amount of use when it comes to resolving the issue, because for resolution to happen it's necessary to specify the way in which the hurt is manifesting. Do you feel...betrayed? ignored? not valued? used? This is also true of feelings which one is trying to negotiate as an individual. It can't be fixed until you know exactly what's wrong.

In the same way, you have to specifically identify what you want before setting goals. "I want to get a new job," doesn't work as a goal. Where do you want to work? What do you hope to achieve by changing jobs? What's your time-frame? Where's the best place to look?

Of course, this may just be because I negotiate life best when I have a system of clear rules and objectives. Spontaneous behaviour scares me deeply, because I don't like unpredictable people. You have no way of knowing what might suddenly come into their heads as a good idea. I'm going to quit my job! I'm going to go to the beach! I'm going to stay out all night! I'm going to rape you! It's the same problem I have with people on any drugs harder than weed and MDMA; you're dealing with someone who is not thinking about things logically and in the case of drugs like coke or speed they're powered-up; augmented, if you like. They might, at any time, decide to erupt. If I'm honest, I don't really like drunk or stoned people for the same reason, but since I'm often very drunk or stoned myself it feels hypocritical.

I like people who have routines. Who get up at the same time every day, and don't mind going to the same pub at the same time every week for drinks. Who plan their parties and job exits and trips to the beach and off-their-face all-nighters at least a week in advance.

The message suddenly irritates me. It is a baited fish-hook; the expectation all the way through it is that I will text or call back and apologise to him. It's aggressive, designed to make me back-pedal and second-guess myself. He hasn't even asked me a question or asked me to meet him; it's a series of statements designed to hurt.

I delete it without replying.

58. It suddenly looks inedible

Chris is standing in the cafeteria queue, staring at me and Martin having lunch. When I turn to look at him, he narrows his eyes and holds my stare. He has not replied to my voicemail dumping him.

I turn back to my tuna melt but it suddenly looks inedible. I look at the pile of food on my plate and can't imagine it all in my stomach.

"He's still doing it," says Martin, nervously.

"I know," I say.

Martin begins taking his BLT apart to remove the tomato.

"I thought the tomato was integral to a BLT," I say. "Without it, it's just a BL."

"I don't like tomato," says Martin. He has disassembled his sandwich completely and it is taking up rather more than his share of the table. He makes a small tower of tomato slices and then begins to carefully re-layer the bacon and lettuce.

"Can I have the tomato?" I say. Martin hands it to me silently.

He takes a sip of his Coke.

"He's still doing it," he says.

I shrug.

"I don't know why you went out with that guy anyway," says Martin. "Everyone thinks he's a cock."

"Do they?" I'm genuinely surprised by this, but then since we were dating it's unlikely anyone will tell me they think Chris is a cock. But if Martin knows this is what people think then it must be a universally acknowledged topic of discussion, because Martin doesn't really talk to anyone very much.

"Yup. They do."

"Why?"

"Because he's in a junior job but he tries to tell people how to do theirs. Because he gets angry about everything, like if the photocopier is left switched on, and then finds who did it and tells them off like in a way which suggests they are an inadequate human being."

He looks down at his BL, stifles a cough with his hand.

"And he's always...chasing girls."

"Chasing girls?"

"Yup. All the attractive girls."

Out of nowhere, a huge wave of feeling washes over me. I feel stupid. I feel used. The intensity of my jealousy and despair shocks me. I don't want Chris any more, but I wanted him to want me.

Inside me a voice quietly tells me that of course that was the case, of course you were one of many, I doubt he even liked you very much, why would he, you're not attractive. You're just easy to fool.

But I know this is wrong. I'm not easy to fool.

When I'm in love, I adore to the point of insanity. Makes sense, really. I'm intense about everything from my brand of perfume to my friends to my clothes to my music to what I spread on my toast (Marmite or Nutella only. You can fuck off with your peanut butters and honeys and marmalades and whatever. Get lost) so naturally one would expect that I would be intense about my romantic relationships.

However, in order to be happy, I need to know that the other person is also in love, that we are equally in it together. And - unfortunately - while I'm rather too good at intense emotion, self-deception is not my forte. It doesn't matter how much I love someone, I can't delude myself when I know they don't feel the same.

I knew Chris didn't feel the same.

I take a deep breath and shut the voice off. We'll talk later, at home, in private, over a glass of wine. I know this voice is not right about me but I also know that now is not the time to argue with it.

"He's a prince among men," says Martin. He crunches a crisp, staring me straight in the eye.

"OK, I'm sorry!" I say. "He was a mistake! We all make mistakes. What about you and Tina?"

As this sentence leaves my lips, I realise I have made a tactical error. Martin does not like to talk about Tina, who did not so much break his heart as put it through the blender.

(and at the same moment, on another level, I realise it wasn't an error; Martin just hurt me, so I wanted to hurt him back. But this thought is too distressing for me to acknowledge fully)

Tina worked here for a year. She pursued Martin, got him, he fell in love, she got bored, he got dumped. Happens to everyone, but he took it very badly. I feel this is partly because he's shy. He doesn't approach women, he waits for them to approach him. This does not happen often because Martin is not talkative and lacks the immediate physical impact of the Chrises of this world. Womankind in general is indifferent to Martin's existence.

Chris's cheekbones, his air of the glamorous, tortured intellectual, would more accurately reflect Martin's personality. If Chris's face had been on Martin and Martin's on Chris, both products would be more as advertised. But the world's unfair like that.

"He's gone," says Martin.

57. Blood, cocaine, MDMA

Amanda picks me up in her car. She is playing some music which sounds as if someone recorded the Sisters of Mercy being attacked by a swarm of robot bees, speeded the result up until it hit 400 beats a minute, and then played it backwards.

"What's this?" I ask.

"Aggrotech. Or maybe it's EBM. I get confused with genre definitions. Cool, no?"

"It sounds like Satan being sick," I say.

Amanda is offended. "I can put on The Beautiful South if you fucking want."

I sit down on the front seat and sling my bag into the back. "I didn't say that was a bad thing."

Amanda pulls smoothly away from the kerb. She glances sideways at me.

"So how'd he take it?" she asks.

I shift slightly. The seat suddenly feels uncomfortable.

"Um...ok? I think?"

The truth is I'm not sure how Chris took it. He didn't reply to my text, so I rang him. He didn't take my call or get back to me. Three hours later I was losing my nerve and knew it had to be done one way or the other. I rang back and left him an answering machine message. That was two days ago and I have not yet had a response. At work, I've avoided those places I know he's likely to be and I haven't bumped into him accidentally.

I am aware dumping someone by voicemail is a social crime and I don't really want to admit I've done this to Amanda. But I tell her anyway, because I tell Amanda everything. She shrugs and says: "Whatever. It's not like he was making any effort."

The car moves me through the winter day. I feel safe. Cocooned, here in the front of Amanda's car, watching the world through glass. I see an old man inching along on a zimmer frame, a plaid scarf wrapped round his neck. I see a squirrel bouncing along the path like a toy someone has thrown.

Chris is slipping smoothly from my mind, through my fingers. He's over.

I've always been this way. When things are over I forget them. Sometimes when I think back over my life I realise how many people have moved in and out of it, how many people I have met who are no longer part of my world. Best friends, boyfriends, people I loved at the time. Some moved to London, some I lost touch with, some died. All forgotten, except for that once in a while when I rifle through dusty old memories as if I'm looking through a photo album.

Mostly, though, I have no use for the past. You can't change it, after all. All it is is reference; a guide to doing the future better.

The song changes. Amanda chants along with the music: "Blood, cocaine, MDMA." Some of her hair has come loose from her blue polka-dot headscarf. "After party fornicate, cut and drink with XP8."

Paradigm shifts can happen to individuals as well as societies, and frequently do. I have had some myself. You think one way for a long time, and then something changes and your thoughts flip and the world is different.

Or it's not; the truth is the world is exactly the same. Your friends are the same, your job's the same, your partner's the same. They are all doing the same things in the same way.

But it's all different, because you're different. Because you see it all through different eyes. It's an internal revolution, or a metamorphosis. It transforms you forever. I was in love with Chris, or I thought I was. Now I'm not in love with him any more. And just like I couldn't imagine not being in love with him when I was, now I'm not in love any more I can't remember or imagine what it felt like.

It's a minor metamorphosis compared with some I've had, but it has the same effect. First I am one thing, then another. 

We pull up outside Gin's house. She is standing by the kerb, looking impatient. She has a large brown bag slung over one shoulder. She is wearing a knee-length red leather coat and oversized sunglasses.

Amanda pulls up. Gin climbs into the back seat. She smells of Chanel and cigarette smoke.