I’m woken by the ringing of my phone.

For the third time so far this morning.

Well, if I’ve ignored it this many times, it can’t hurt to ignore it once more.

But this time, I’m awake enough to take a little peek out from beneath my duvet, just to see if, by any chance, Marilyn Monroe has appeared on the Chesterfield again, mink-clad or otherwise.

She hasn’t, and the scent of Chanel No. 5 has faded by now too.

I sit up properly, rub my bleary eyes, and then, just to settle something in my own mind, I open the drawer at the bottom of my narrow bedside table. I lift up my vintage-bead box, and my makeup bag, and the pile of bills that I sometimes shove in there when they all arrive at once and get a bit too scary. Then I feel around for the pair of sunglasses that I hope – as I always do when I come back to check on them – will be hidden away there in the back left-hand corner.

They’re still there.

I pull them all the way out to have a proper look.

This pair of dark tortoiseshell Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses is the reason why I didn’t just assume, when I came upon Marilyn Monroe in my flat yesterday evening, that I was cracking up. Suffering hallucinations. Talking – like some sort of overgrown, Manhattan-swigging toddler – to an imaginary friend.

These are Audrey Hepburn’s sunglasses. She left them behind the last time she came for a ‘visit’. And thanks to the fact that Bogdan has seen them, and that Dillon has seen them, and that half the population of Rome commented on them (Ciao, Audrey!) every time I wore them, over there, on the first weekend Dillon and I ever spent together, I know that they’re as real as the nose on my face.

I know this. I always knew it, even though my faith has occasionally wavered a bit since then.

It didn’t help, probably, that in the (thorough, scientific) interests of eliminating any possibility that I was cracking up/suffering hallucinations/talking to an imaginary friend, I shelled out for a couple of terrifyingly expensive sessions with a psychiatrist friend of Nora’s, Dr Burnett, a few times last summer. Just to drop in a mention of my encounters with Audrey Hepburn, to see what a professional might say. I don’t know what I was expecting, really, but Dr Burnett couldn’t have been firmer about the fact that it had all been nothing more than my imagination. Stress-induced visual and auditory hallucinations, he mentioned on my second visit. And, as for the sunglasses, well, they must have been an old, forgotten pair of mine, according to him, or even something I’d gone out and bought, in some sort of fugue state, to convince myself that what I’d been seeing and hearing was in fact real.

I never went back for a third session.

Because Dr Burnett was wrong. For all his many degrees, and qualifications, and years of experience, he was, in this case, wrong.

I lean down, again, and hunt in the very back of that same drawer for the other thing I keep tucked away there: a folded-up piece of paper, torn from a copy of InStyle magazine, with a picture on it.

It’s a picture of Audrey Hepburn, at Pinewood Studios, sitting on my Chesterfield sofa.

What are the odds that Marilyn Monroe, while filming at Pinewood herself, encountered the Chesterfield too?

I mean, she did film whatsit, that film with (ha!) Laurence Olivier over here, didn’t she? The Prince and the Showgirl … I’m not my father’s daughter for nothing: some bits of movie history do sink in. That said, I’ll just grab my phone and Google it, to be absolutely sure …

And of course, the bloody thing starts ringing again, just as I slide out of bed, stagger to the sofa, and pick it out of my handbag.

It’s an Unknown number.

The only calls I ever get from an Unknown number are – were – Adam, calling from his office.

If it’s been him calling three times already this morning, then I guess I’d better get this call out of the way. Accept whatever apology he’s offering in a dignified, if chilly fashion, in an attempt to claw my dignity back from where I left it, on his kitchen floor.

Assuming that he is offering an apology, and not, I don’t know, calling to tell me I owe him for a new safety gate, or doggy post-traumatic-stress sessions for Fritz, or something.

Which reminds me that I do need to tell him about those earrings. I can’t have Fritz’s choking death on my conscience. Bad enough that I got the poor creature addicted to artery-clogging pâté.

‘Hi,’ I say, coolly, as I answer. ‘Adam?’

‘No, sorry,’ says a woman’s voice. ‘Is this Liberty Lomax?’

‘Er … yes …?’

‘My name is Erin,’ she goes on, in the sort of hushed, oddly reverential tone I’ve found is always used in spas, or beauty salons. ‘I’m calling from the Grove House clinic in west London.’

‘Grove House?’ The name rings a bell, for some reason, but I can’t put my finger on why. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why you’re …’ Then I remember why I know the name. ‘You mean the Grove House psychiatric clinic?’

But how can a psychiatric clinic possibly have known about last night … and Marilyn?

‘We prefer to think of ourselves as a treatment facility,’ Erin says, in that same hushed, beauty-salon tone of voice. ‘A rehabilitation centre, for anyone suffering from the symptoms of many common substance-abuse disorders.’

‘But this thing that happens to me,’ I croak, ‘it’s real. I mean, it’s not the symptom of a substance-abuse disorder. Famous people really, really do pop up out of my magic sofa.’

There’s a short silence at the other end of the phone.

‘I know, I know,’ I go on, ‘that sounds crazy … but maybe that’s just because I shouldn’t be using the term magic. It’s probably a bit off-putting. Would it make me sound any less unhinged if I used the word enchanted?’

I really like this, actually, now that I say it out loud: it gives the whole bizarre situation a pleasingly literary flavour, as if my Chesterfield is just part of a great enchanted-furniture heritage that also includes the wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the bed from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Which, OK, I know are both totally made up, but …

‘Miss Lomax, I think you might have misunderstood the purpose of my phone call.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m not calling to discuss … sorry, did you say that famous people pop up out of your … magical sofa?’

‘Enchanted,’ I correct her, eagerly. ‘But yes, I did say that. You’re quite right.’

‘Ri-i-i-i-ght … uh, I’m actually calling to talk about your sister.’

‘My sister?’

‘Yes. Cassidy Kennedy. She was admitted to the clinic last night.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Cassidy checked herself in,’ Erin says, in a voice that’s more mellifluous than ever, ‘late last night. Seeking the clinic’s help to deal with her addiction issues.’

OK, now I really feel like I’m losing the plot.

‘But Cass doesn’t have any addiction issues. Unless … well, do you treat selfie-taking addiction at your clinic?’

‘I’m not really at liberty,’ she replies, in the sort of chilly tone that I’d have been using on Adam, if it had been him calling, ‘to discuss the precise details of your sister’s case. All I will say is that quite often we find that family members are the last ones to notice that there’s a problem.’

I’m torn between repeating, again, that Cass doesn’t have a problem, and allowing myself to give in to the anxiety that’s suddenly gnawing away at me.

I mean, Cass is my sister … my little sister … and now all of a sudden she’s taken herself off to a psychiatric clinic?

This whole cancelled TV deal must have hit her much worse than I’d thought.

‘Anyway, I’m just calling on Cassidy’s behalf, because there are no mobile phones allowed in here, to ask if you might be able to bring a few basic necessities over for her?’

I’m already mentally compiling a list of the things I think Cass might need over there: her childhood blankie that she still likes to snuggle with when she’s feeling poorly; her comfiest pair of pyjamas; even a few family photos, perhaps, to make her room feel more homely … or, at the very least, a few of the framed selfies that line her living-room walls …

‘Of course,’ I say, casting around my untidy flat for a pen and a piece of scrap paper. ‘Hang on a sec, I’m just looking for something to write with …’

‘Oh, that’s OK. Now that we’ve spoken, I’ll send you a text with the list. And I’ll let Cassidy know you’ll be over to visit her later in the day, shall I?’

‘Tell her I’m on my way. I mean, like, right now.’

I hang up, and start pulling on the nearest clothes to hand, which are the black trousers I wore yesterday, and the most beloved of all my grey hoodies that even Audrey Hepburn couldn’t persuade me to get rid of, and I’ve just twisted my hair up into a clip and stuck my feet into a pair of Converse when my phone pings with Erin’s text message.

It’s not … quite the sort of thing I was expecting.

No requests for Blankie, or pyjamas, or her framed selfies.

LARGE MAKEUP BOX FROM BEDROOM

MEDIUM MAKEUP BOX FROM BATHROOM

OK, so Cass wants her makeup … well, sure, I get that. Every woman knows the power of her favourite lipstick to lift her mood when things are tough.

CURLING TONGS

STRAIGHTENING IRONS

MINI STRAIGHTENING IRONS

Well, her hair has always been important to her … It’s just that I’m surprised that even Cass would have the energy to set about it with curling tongs/straightening irons when she’s so depressed about the demise of her TV reality show.

JBRAND SKINNIES

VICTORIA BECKHAM SUPER-SUPER SKINNIES

NEW TAN LOUBOUTIN KNEE-HIGH BOOTS

OLD TAN LOUBOUTIN KNEE-HIGH BOOTS

CHERRY-RED TOPSHOP MICRO-SHORTS

WHITE DENIM CUT-OFF MINI

OK: this Grove House Clinic … is it, by any chance, the world’s first rehab-facility-slash-nightclub?

Apart from anything else, I’m going to need a massive suitcase to get all this stuff over to Cass, in …

Oh, I’d better look up where Grove House is, exactly.

Barnes.

Great. So it’s all the way up to Cass’s flat in Maida Vale in northwest London, and then all the way back across town again to leafy, hard-to-access-by-public-transport Barnes in the south.

But, like I’ve already said, Cass is my only sister, and I’m not going to think twice about it.

Well, I’m not going to think a third time about it.

And, looking on the bright side, at least a schlep across London in the rush hour is going to give me a break from running the whole Marilyn situation through my head again.

*

Three hours, four tubes and a painfully slow bus journey later, and I’m finally approaching the Grove House clinic, a rambling red-brick Victorian mansion overlooking the north side of Barnes Common.

There are tall iron gates (I’ll be avoiding putting my head anywhere near those, thank you very much) and a large buzzer to press on the wall to the side of them, and … oh! A half-dozen or so photographers lurking, right by the wall, who suddenly leap into action as they see me approaching, their cameras at the ready.

There are a couple of bright flashes, dazzling me, until one of them announces, ‘She’s no one,’ and they all go back to lurking again.

Which is charming, isn’t it, because for all they know, especially given that I’m rocking up here with a large suitcase, I could be here to check into the clinic for serious depression and anxiety, characterized by feelings of low self-esteem and worthlessness.

I give them all a meaningful stare, then stop beside the wall and press the buzzer.

It’s not very impressive, given the presence of the paparazzi outside, that I’m buzzed through the gates without anyone so much as bothering to ask my name … but I try not to take against the place before I’ve even gone inside. I walk across a gravelled driveway – not easy, with a heavy suitcase to pull – and then reach another buzzer just to the left of the main front door. This time a woman’s voice – Erin’s? – states a smooth, ‘Yes?’ out of the speakerphone before I give my name, and am buzzed through here too.

My appointments with Dr Burnett were at his consulting rooms in Marylebone so, despite my own brush with psychiatric treatment, I’ve never set foot in a psychiatric clinic before. I don’t know what I was expecting, really, but if the Grove House clinic has just a touch of Victorian-asylum-chic on the outside, it’s not at all Victorian-asylum-chic once you’re through these doors. If anything, it looks a lot more like a smart new boutique hotel: polished marble floors, stunning floral arrangements and bold expressionist art on the walls.

I feel – in Yesterday’s Trousers and my chucked-on hoodie, with my eye makeup still unwashed after last night – way, way too grubby and unpolished for a place like this. And I can suddenly see why, after all, Cass might have wanted me to bring half the contents of her wardrobe and all her grooming equipment.

There’s a little reception area (leather Eames chairs; a table stocked with glass bottles of mineral water) just inside the main door so, in the absence of a human being to tell me where to go or what to do, I perch in one of the chairs and wait, anxiously, to be summoned.

And then I remember that I was just about to Google ‘Marilyn Monroe Pinewood Studios’ right before the call from Erin that turned my day into, well, this. So I reach for my phone, my Google finger at the ready, because I may as well at least accomplish something useful while I sit around here.

Yes. Oh, Lord, yes, I was right. If the Gods of Google (and the wise men of Wikipedia) are to be believed, then Marilyn did, indeed, film The Prince and the Showgirl at Pinewood, in 1956.

OK, so now I suppose what I’m looking for – if it even exists – is some sort of evidence that she, like Audrey Hepburn before her, came into contact with a battered old Chesterfield sofa during her long days at the studio. I mean, she must have had a dressing room there, right? Somewhere she famously holed up with that intense acting coach of hers to find her motivation for each scene …

My train of thought is disturbed by the arrival, on my phone screen, of a brand-new text message.

Hi. We met on Monday night. My boyfriend Adam’s house. Call me on this number asap, please? Rgds, Benjamin Milne

Oh, my God.

Ben.

And he wants me to call him?

This can’t be good news. I mean, he didn’t look much of a fluffy bunny of a man when he scowled round the side of the cooker at me. Even factoring in the obvious social awkwardness of arriving in your boyfriend’s kitchen to find his secret girlfriend apparently engaged in some sort of solitary bondage experiment there, he could hardly have been more irritable-looking.

And now he’s suggesting that I call him?

I’m not going to call him! Don’t I already have enough stress in my life without having to expose myself to the misplaced anger of my ex-boyfriend’s boyfriend? If there’s anyone he ought to be telling to call him asap so that, presumably, he can have a go at them, it’s bloody Adam. Not me.

Adam, I message him, furiously – and fast, because I can already see an ethereal-looking redheaded girl, who must be Erin, appearing as if out of nowhere and heading towards me – why the hell did you give Ben my number, and why the hell does he think it’s OK to use it to harass me???

I press send.

Then, just as Erin reaches me, I type a follow-up message.

Btw I think I left my earrings on your kitchen floor. Please send them back to me by registered post. Wouldn’t want Fritz to choke on them.

‘Hello,’ says Erin, in that same blandly mellifluous voice. ‘You must be Liberty Lomax? I’m Erin. We spoke on the phone earlier. You mentioned a magic sofa?’

I laugh, weakly. ‘Well, you did catch me only a few moments after waking up.’

‘Of course. Let me just give you this,’ she adds, smoothly, reaching forward to press a glossy brochure into my hands. ‘Just in case you should ever decide that a short stay with us might be beneficial to you, too.’

‘No, no, I’m really not—’

‘Cassidy,’ Erin interrupts, waving an ethereal hand towards some huge French windows at the back of the lobby, ‘is in the garden. Her midday yoga workshop should just about have come to an end. I can keep this –’ she nods towards Cass’s suitcase – ‘in the office. We check our clients’ bags when they come to stay with us, anyway. Not that I’m accusing you of bringing in any banned substances.’

Well, she pretty much is accusing me of bringing in banned substances, but I’m not about to point that out to her right now.

Because it’s not just Erin’s aura of preternatural calm and ever-so-slightly disturbing tranquillity that is sending my heart leaping into my mouth with nerves as I get up and head across the marble floor, and out on to a wide patio. This whole thing is starting to get scarily real, and I’m suddenly anxious about the sort of state I’m going to find Cass in.

In fact, I can see her now, breaking away from a group at the far end of the large, lush lawn to jog across towards me.

I open my arms, eager to sweep her up into a great big, older-sisterly hug, and tell her everything’s going to be all right—

‘Did you bring my black string bikini?’ she asks, the moment she reaches me.

‘Erin didn’t mention anything about a—’

‘No, I know Erin didn’t mention it, because I forgot to put it on the list I gave her, but I thought you’d be bound to realize it when you got to my apartment.’

‘Bound to realize that you needed a black string bikini? In a psychiatric clinic?’

‘Rehab centre,’ Cass corrects me. ‘And duh, Libby, of course I need my black string bikini. I want to sunbathe by the rooftop pool! I’m never going to keep up in here if I just have to sit up there in a pair of shorts and a borrowed bra-top, like I did this morning.’

There’s a rooftop pool? For sunbathing?

What kind of clinic is this, for crying out loud?

And more to the point—

‘Keep up with what?’ I ask.

‘The other patients, of course!’

Cass grabs my arm and leads me to a bench at the edge of the patio, from where we can look out over the entire garden. There are lots of abnormally attractive people hanging out on the lawn: some are busy with yoga, others are drinking coffee and puffing away at cigarettes, and there are several small gatherings of them sitting in circles and engaged in deep-looking conversation. I may not be an expert, but I’d guess they were support groups.

‘I mean, you’ve absolutely no idea how difficult it is to get in with the A list here,’ Cass is continuing, as she slumps, exhaustedly, on to the bench.

‘There’s an A list?’

‘Of course there is! It’s a celebrity rehab clinic, Libby! I mean, look around … those two girls on that bench over there, with the coffee cups – one of them is in the new M&S lingerie ads, and the other one was on the cover of Vogue last November … and that guy doing the downward dog in my yoga group – see him? – he’s that stand-up comedian Mum likes, the one she went to see at Wembley for her birthday.’

‘Right. Well, hard to tell, obviously, from that particular view of him.’

‘And there’s a tonne of actors, and actresses, and loads of famous musicians that I’d probably know if, like, I gave a shit about music … It’s why I’m wondering, Lib, if it wasn’t the best decision for me to have an alcohol problem.’

‘Cass.’ I put a hand on top of hers. ‘Sweetheart. It’s never a good decision to develop a problem with alcohol. And I wish you’d told me. I had absolutely no idea you’ve been—’

‘No, no, God, no, I don’t mean that. I mean, maybe it would have been a better decision for me to come in here with a drugs problem. Or – oooh – an eating disorder! Do you think I could have an eating disorder?’

‘Er … do you think you could have an eating disorder?’

‘Libby!’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I’m just asking if you think I’m thin enough! Because obviously if I was going to say I had an eating disorder, I’d have to say it was anorexia … bulimia’s just too gross and totally unglamorous.’

‘Right. And anorexia is glitz and glamour personified.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that, Lib.’ She’s completely missed the sarcasm. ‘I mean, sure, you end up really thin and stuff, but if you take it too far your breath starts to smell, and your hair falls out … Anyway, I’m only asking because all the really hot models and actresses are either in the eating disorders support groups or the druggie ones, and it would be, like really good for me if I could make friends with a few of them before I check out.’

Something is starting to sound more than just a little fishy here.

‘Cass. Can you just tell me again why you checked yourself in here?’

‘Ooooh, absolutely. I’d love to!’

And suddenly, she’s putting on her Acting Face.

If you’ve ever seen Cass in anything – regional panto, one of her small roles in one of the soaps, her recent role as resident babe in Isara 364 – you’ll recognize her Acting Face: a middle-distance gaze, a half-pouted mouth, and a sucking-in of her cheekbones to make her face look a bit thinner. And she has an Acting Voice to go with it, a way of speaking that makes it sound as if every word she utters has a Capital Letter and is therefore Terribly, Terribly Important.

‘The Demon Drink, They Call It,’ she’s saying, as if she’s auditioning for the part of a downtrodden-but-honest gin-soaked prostitute in an especially twee Victorian murder mystery. ‘And It’s Certainly Brought Out The Demons In Me.’

‘Cass—’

‘It Started With The Occasional Vodka, At The End Of A Stressful Day. And Then, Before I Knew It, I Was Drinking An Entire Bottle. In One Gulp. And Then Immediately Opening The Next One. It’s Why The Time Has Come For Me To Be Honest With Everybody – My Family, My Friends And, Most Importantly Of All, The Great British Public – In The Hope That My Story Can Bring Solstice To Anyone Else In The Same Boat.’

I take a deep breath.

‘I think you mean solace.’

‘What?’

‘Solace. Not Solstice. Solstice is the longest night of the summer. Or winter.’

‘No it’s not.’ Cass shakes her head, irritably. ‘It’s an ice lollipop.’

I lean forward on the bench and place my head in my hands.

‘I mean, I did wonder why I was supposed to start talking about ice lollipops … like, why would my story be bringing a Solstice to anyone?’ Cass’s forehead wrinkles. ‘But then I thought maybe it’ll be a coupon for a free one with the newspaper on the day my story comes out, or something?’ She waves an airy hand. ‘Dave’ll handle all that side of it.’

I think I’m starting to see the bigger picture here, confusion over ice lollipops notwithstanding.

‘Cass. Please – please – don’t tell me you’re faking a serious addiction just to get a story about yourself in the newspapers.’

‘Of course I’m not!’

‘Oh, thank God, because that would be—’

‘Once the story’s come out in the newspapers, then the goal is to convince RealTime Media that they ought to contract me for Considering Cassidy after all.’

I take my head out of my hands and stare at her. ‘Cassidy Kennedy! You cannot pretend to have a drink problem to get yourself a TV show!’

‘So you think I should go with the drugs angle, too? Or the eating disorder?’

‘No! This isn’t an American university, for crying out loud! You can’t just go around switching your major! Besides, don’t you think the clinic is going to find it a bit suspicious that you came in here claiming a drink problem, and then the next day you suddenly say, Oh, actually, it’s turned into an eating disorder instead?’

‘Well, that could happen, couldn’t it? I mean, cut off from alcohol, it’s perfectly possible you might get so bored that you start obsessively counting calories and become an anorexic? There’s not much to do here, Libby. I mean, I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours, and I’m already bored stupid, trying to work out how to fill the time.’

‘Well, if you were actually an addict of some sort, Cass, I expect that working on kicking your horrible, life-destroying habit would take up a bit of the time …’ Too angry, now, to say any more, I get to my feet. ‘I’m going. Seriously, Cass, I’m not going to sit around and … enable this nonsense.’

‘Oh, my God, you’re using that word too! What the hell is this enabling crap, exactly? They were going on and on about it in my support group this morning, as if it’s, like, a bad thing. But it just means helping, right?’

‘No, it bloody doesn’t! It means you help people feed their habits, which isn’t the same thing. And remember, I know a little bit about all this horrible, real addiction stuff, because I was with Dillon O’Hara for three months! Or had you forgotten the miserable mess I got into, getting involved with—’

‘Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. He’s here.’

‘Who?’

‘Dillon. He’s here. At the clinic.’

I wouldn’t have thought it possible to have a bigger shock than encountering Marilyn Monroe in my flat last night.

But apparently it’s perfectly possible.

I actually have to sit back down on the bench again, because my legs have turned into trifle.

‘Dillon. Is. Here?’

Cass nods, not that interested. ‘I mean, I haven’t seen him or anything, but I had a little chat with that M&S lingerie model while we were eating breakfast this morning – well, I was eating breakfast; she was moving a single slice of kiwi fruit from one side of her plate to the other, obviously; God, I only wish I had that kind of discipline—’

‘Not important.’

‘Well, she was saying she’d seen loads of paparazzi gathering outside the gates this morning because apparently –’ Cass pulls a disgusted face – ‘he’s got some kind of discharge …’

Years of translating Cass’s mis-speaks make this one easy for me to get my head around.

‘Do you mean he’s being discharged?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ She nods, thoughtfully. ‘That might have been it. Though I think he’s been in here for his sex addiction, Lib, or at least partly, so it isn’t totally impossible that he’d have some kind of discharge …’

‘So he’s gone? Or he’s still here—?’

‘I don’t know, Libby! God, it’s like you don’t think I have anything better to do than to keep an eye on your scuzzy ex-boyfriend’s exact whereabouts! I’ve got a serious addiction to kick, all right? Now, just help me decide, once and for all, which one.’

‘No. I have to go. I don’t want to risk … I just don’t want to see him.’

‘OK, well, if he is still around, and if I run into him, I’ll say hi to him from you, shall I?’

‘No! Don’t say anything—’

‘Hey, I’ve had an amazing idea!’ Cass’s eyes are suddenly very wide and staring, as if she might in fact have a drugs problem after all. ‘Maybe I could just hang out with Dillon while we’re both in here! That way he’d be able to introduce me to all the really important people – good guest stars for me to line up for the show – and I wouldn’t even need to switch to a different support group after all!’

‘Cass. If you use my relationship with Dillon to claw your way to the top of the pile in here,’ I say, firmly (or as firmly as I can given that my entire being has now become the consistency of trifle), ‘I will never ever forgive you for it.’

‘Hey!’ Her eyes narrow. ‘Don’t you start telling me what I can and cannot do, Libby. You’re not the one suffering from a Soul-Destroying Alcohol Addiction …’

‘Neither are you!’ I snap, as I turn on my heel (well, the sole of my Converse) and stamp out of the garden and back towards the lobby, leaving my annoying sister and her fabricated drink problem behind me.

I really, really don’t want to see Dillon. Today, tomorrow – or, in fact, ever again.

Because I’m not a masochist, all right? I get all stressed out about even having to take off a plaster. I avoid bikini waxes until I’m in danger of being hunted down by torch-wielding villagers. Inflicting pain on myself, of either the physical or emotional kind, is not a thing that is pleasurable to me.

And it would be absolutely sod’s law, wouldn’t it, if I did happen to see him, that I’d do so when I’m unwashed and bed-headed, in boring black trousers and a hoodie with – I’ve only just noticed this; how have I only just noticed this? – a seriously dubious-looking light brown stain right down the front of it. Instead of, say, bumping into him at some miraculous point in the future when I’m two stone lighter, with a glowing summer tan and terrific hair, and while, most importantly of all, I’m sauntering down the street on the arm of, say, Daniel Craig. Or Eddie Redmayne. Or that really dishy one who plays Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. Gorgeous, and loved-up, and … sorted.

Anything, anything, rather than seeing him again right now.

Which is why I start to breathe a little easier the minute I’ve crossed the lobby (without any further pamphleteering from eerie Erin, thank God), opened the main lobby door, and made my way at speed across the driveway and towards the iron gates.

The photographers clustered on the other side of the gates all start dancing their paparazzi dance as soon as they see me, and yelling their paparazzi war-cry, and jostling for position, and lifting their Nikons up above their heads to snap pictures, because once again none of them has yet realized that I’m ‘nobody’. As soon as I get closer to the gate, they’re going to cotton on, and look pretty bloody silly about it.

But they’re not stopping. They’re just getting more and more agitated, the closer I get.

It’s almost as if someone actually famous is coming out of the clinic behind me.

I glance over one shoulder, just to see if there’s any way I could be right about this.

And yes, someone actually famous is coming out of the clinic behind me.

In battered grey jeans and a Run DMC T-shirt, rock-star sunglasses shielding his eyes, it’s Dillon O’Hara.