I woke up at six-thirty, got dressed and stepped out into the back garden.

I like the early morning. It’s generally very quiet, apart from assortments of birds twittering to each other and the occasional roaring of a beefed-up car telling the neighbourhood it doesn’t care it’s asleep.

Our garden isn’t really a garden as such. I tend to think gardens have flowers or borders and patches of lawn. Ours is a little like pictures I’ve seen of no-man’s-land in the First World War, all muddy and cratered. At least it isn’t covered in mangled bodies, though sometimes I find dried curls of dog turds. I have no idea how they get there, because we haven’t got a dog.

I made the sun appear. It was a kind of pale pink, as if it hadn’t decided on its final colour yet. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was one of those scenes where someone in a book would say that they felt glad to be alive. I guess I felt that way, but only because the alternative wasn’t great.

When I went back into the kitchen, Jim was sitting at the table smoking a cigarette. There was no sign of Mum. We eyed each other. Well, I eyed him, but his eyes were roaming south of my face. Jim and I don’t like each other. Well, maybe he likes me, but that won’t have anything to do with my personality.

‘No smoking in the house,’ I pointed out. Did anyone other than brain-dead morons still smoke inside houses? I thought not.

He nodded but his eyes didn’t move. Nor did his body. He just took a final drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out in a saucer.

‘Working on your PhD today?’ I asked. At least he raised his eyes.

‘Wha?’

I didn’t have to explain, because Mum came into the room. She had her dressing gown on, a silky number she doesn’t normally wear unless someone stays over. She also had her make-up on, though it had clearly been through the wringer. It looked like she’d been the victim of a vicious assault.

‘Hello, darl,’ she said, but I couldn’t tell whether this was directed at me or Jim. When there was no reply, she turned to me. ‘What have we got in for breakfast?’ she asked.

‘How about bacon, eggs and sausages?’ I replied.

That perked Jim up.

‘Beauty,’ he said.

‘Oh, wait a moment,’ I said. I think I might even have scratched my chin. ‘We might be missing some ingredients there. Like bacon and sausages.’ There was an ominous silence. ‘And eggs,’ I added.

Mum sighed.

‘Take no notice of her, Jim,’ she said. ‘She can be a real cow sometimes.’

Was this really the time to talk to my mother about denigrating language aimed exclusively at women? I guessed not.

‘What have you got?’ said Jim. ‘I could eat a scabby horse.’ He nudged Mum in the side and gave her a wink that came perilously close to turning my stomach. ‘Built up an appetite,’ he added, ‘if you get my drift.’

Dear God.

‘We’ve got cornflakes,’ I said. ‘Take it or leave it.’

‘Be an angel,’ said Mum, ‘and fix us a couple of bowls, would you?’

‘It would be my honour,’ I replied.

I got the pack from the cupboard, poured a decent helping into two bowls and then opened the fridge. The milk didn’t look fantastic and it didn’t smell fantastic either, but I didn’t give a rat’s. I sloshed it in, grabbed a couple of spoons and the sugar packet and dumped them on the table.

‘I’m getting ready for school,’ I said.

Mum smiled and Jim waved a spoon about vaguely, as if giving permission. I got out of the room as quickly as possible. Not just because if I spent any more time with that man I’d be likely to attack him with a meat cleaver (not that we’ve got one), but because it was best to be far from the scene of the crime.

Nonetheless, I heard the yells from my bedroom. They were the kind of yells – and maybe, just maybe, the sounds of violent retching? – that in my experience accompany the discovery of four or five dead cockroaches in your bowl of breakfast cereal.

They get everywhere, those little buggers, though not, by some miracle, in Mum’s bowl.

‘I have a booking,’ said Simon. ‘Next Saturday, two in the afternoon. You’ll be paid for an hour but I don’t think you’ll be going longer than thirty minutes. Attention spans and all that. It’s a birthday party for four- and five-year-olds. Sixty bucks and almost certainly recommendations for future gigs.’ He looked into my eyes. ‘Assuming your act is good, of course.’

‘My act is always good,’ I replied. ‘Did you get the TikTok account set up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fabulous.’

‘And I still need to order the banner, so it probably won’t be ready for Saturday. Can I take a picture of you on my phone?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘For the banner.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I will be performing in front of the banner, Simon,’ I said. ‘They will see my face. Why do they need to see it twice?’

‘Because it’s lovely?’ He gave what was clearly an attempt at a winning smile.

‘Eat shit and die, Simon,’ I replied.

Mum was sitting in the back garden when I got home from school. Alone and smoking a cigarette in a broken-down plastic chair. I pulled an equally broken-down chair next to her and sat. We didn’t say anything for a few minutes.

‘Isn’t nature glorious?’ I said finally. I think there was a new dog turd a metre or so in front of me. Some mysteries can be very annoying.

‘Jim won’t be coming round anymore,’ said Mum, flicking her butt with one practised finger. I watched as the cigarette curved through the air and settled next to the turd. ‘He’s finished with me.’

‘It’s a tragedy beyond imagining,’ I replied. ‘How will we survive?’

‘Any idea how cockroaches ended up in his cornflakes, Grace?’

‘Crawled? I’m not an expert, though, so don’t quote me.’

Mum pulled another smoke from a pack and lit up.

‘You know, he was the best thing that had happened to me for a long time. He was . . . well, he was interested in me. You know what I’m saying? He paid attention.’

A number of comments sprang to mind, but for once I kept them to myself. When I thought about it, I supposed it was a tragedy. That Mum was so alone, so lacking in any kind of confidence or self-belief that a pig masquerading as a human being could make her feel . . . I don’t know. Needed, I guess. And what did that say about me? Sure, Mum was never going to be anyone’s choice for parent of the year, but I wasn’t going to be nominated for daughter of the year either. Reasons. We both had reasons for the way we were, but that was no excuse for not trying to connect. I remembered the question she had asked me: Why don’t we talk anymore? I remember thinking, Because we have nothing to say. That’s true. But when did truth ever matter in relationships, especially between mother and daughter?

‘Tell me about him, Mother.’

And she did. How he could be kind sometimes. Yeah, he had his faults, but don’t we all? He made her laugh. He was comfortable with who he was. He once bought her a lovely pair of earrings. She’d admired them in a local jewellers and he’d gone back the next day and bought them. Didn’t tell her, just slid them over the table to her in an Indian restaurant. She wore them all the time after that.

I thought about how he would look at my body and the way he licked his lips without being aware of it. I don’t understand people. I’m one myself and I don’t understand me.

I left Mum to herself after a while. She was chaining and the smoke was getting to me. But, truth be told, I really left because I hate to witness pain. It’s one thing I’ve never been able to make disappear.

The bath wasn’t deep enough for my purposes, but it would have to do. I filled it as close to the brim as possible. I moved a small plastic table to the side and put my phone on it, after setting up the stopwatch function.

I stood for a moment, looking at the water.

I don’t like water.

I mean, I’m normally okay getting into a bath, though the shower is my preferred means of personal hygiene. But I’d always avoid getting into a swimming pool. The school had a gala last year – all the kids were bussed down to the local pool and there were relays and endless competitions. I watched from the bleachers. Students who weren’t taking part were supposed to be in their ‘houses’ cheering their team on and generally being enthusiastic. House songs were much encouraged. I didn’t understand. There’s a certain logic about seeing who can get from point A to point B quicker than anyone else – it’s not one that appeals to me, but I get it. But why do freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke and all the other combinations? You don’t do it with running. One hundred metre hopping, crawling on hands and knees, running backwards with one hand up your arse. It makes no sense.

I’d forgotten it was the swimming gala that day. Normally, I’d wag with a mysterious illness involving stomach pains.

I looked at the water in the bath again. Then I dug through the bathroom cabinet and found some hairpins, the metal kind that nobody uses anymore to keep their hair in place.

I put four beneath my tongue and then lowered myself into the bath. I lay for a while, my face a small island. The bathroom ceiling needed painting as well. Maybe Jim could’ve done it. Too late for that.

I reached out for my phone, hyperventilated for a minute or so, pressed the start button and sank beneath the water.

The first thirty seconds are the worst. Overcoming the panic when the water closes over your face. All those nightmares. All those horrible nightmares. The first couple of times I did this, I jerked up – a demented mermaid – spluttering almost immediately. I’m better now. I closed my eyes and tried to think calming thoughts, imagine I was in a place where I could float away from the world around me. That sounds good in theory but is hard in practice.

I stayed below, counting. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. Not for the time – my phone was taking care of that – but for the ritual and the mindless peace it might bring. The first signs of the lungs demanding air started, but I knew that in a few seconds they would vanish. I moved the hairpins around in my mouth. If I swallowed one I’d be in strife, but controlling objects is second nature to me now.

Then the burn started and this time I knew it wouldn’t go away. It would get steadily worse as my body told me it needed oxygen. When I ignored those signs, they would get louder and louder, more insistent. Eventually, the body would tell the mind to go straight to hell and breathe in regardless.

Best to be above the water for that.

I burst from the surface, scrambled to turn off the stopwatch function on my phone and took deep lungfuls of air. Small black dots danced before my eyes and my chest heaved. I had to wait a couple of minutes until my breathing regulated and my heart stopped hammering. Only then did I look at the time.

Two minutes and ten seconds.

Very close to my personal best of two minutes and eighteen seconds.

Also, of course, a long way from the world record of something crazy like twenty-four minutes (though that was done after inhaling pure oxygen from a tank).

I wanted to get to three minutes, three and a half if possible, and I reckoned I could do that with practice.

I’d have to, because my life would depend on it.