If it all went wrong, if by some horrible chance I survived, I thought, I could always say it was an accident. It wouldn’t, after all, be the first time I’d pleaded accident for something that had been entirely deliberate. I had the scars to prove it.

It was four o’clock in the morning. I was alone in the canteen; nobody even knew where I was. I had the window pushed as far open as it would go. Three storeys below, the murky waters of the river Ouse rippled in the wind, dimly illuminated by the apartment block opposite. It would be a long way to fall, a long time to regret my decision. Not that I thought I would regret the decision. But suicide isn’t as easy as people make out. They call it the easy way out, but it takes real courage and strength to take your own life. I’d come close so many times, but never had the guts to go through with it.

Until that night.

Sitting on the window ledge with my legs dangling outside, I was sure this time I could really do it. It was the only way. I was ready to die. I wanted to die, though for one panicked moment, I couldn’t remember why. There was a dam of tears behind my eyes, but I was more afraid of shedding them than I was of dying. Death would be the relief I longed for, but crying would only make things worse.

A distant siren split the silent air like a knife. I jerked with fright, almost dislodging myself from my perch. A tiny scream escaped my throat, my heart beating as if it were trying to burst from my chest. I didn’t want it to be like that, some graceless fall, screaming all the way down. When I plunged to my death, it had to be deliberate – a dive into blessed oblivion.

Suddenly, the canteen was flooded with light. I froze, like the proverbial rabbit caught in the headlights, my knuckles white as I fiercely gripped the window frame.

‘What the hell…’

There was a frantic quality to Tony’s voice as he ran towards me. I half-turned my head to watch. I wanted to see his face when he realised what I’d been driven to.

‘Marty, for God’s sake!’ he cried, grabbing me fiercely by the arm and pulling me back inside as if I was nothing more than a rag doll. As if I was lifeless. Images flashed before my eyes: my body being pulled from the Ouse, dead eyes blankly staring; my body hanging from the ornate iron-work of Lendal Bridge, whilst tourists stared in horror. A shudder of revulsion ran down my spine.

Tony half-led, half-dragged me up the three steps to the seating area, pushed me down onto one of the plush red chairs. The vending machine whirred as he fed it twenty-pence pieces, and then he was forcing the resulting cardboard cup of coffee into my hands.

‘Why did you come up here?’ I asked him, sipping the scalding liquid.

‘Looking for you. It’s as well I did! What in the name of God were you doing? You could have broken your bloody neck!’ Tony retorted. His normally smiling face was creased into a deep frown. He looked at me as if he didn’t even know who l was.

‘I had my heart set on drowning,’ I said, meaning to shock. I was tired of hiding the truth behind big fake smiles. I wanted someone, for once, to see that I wasn’t everything I seemed.

‘You…’ Tony set his coffee down on the low table between us. ‘Marty, you don’t mean that. You don’t know what you’re saying!’

‘I know exactly what I’m saying!’ I snapped. ‘I was going to jump, Tony. Not that you’d care. Not that you’d even notice until I wasn’t there to do your job for you!’

‘What?’ Tony tried to take hold of one of my hands, but I snatched it quickly back. ‘Of course I care! Listen to me – we wouldn’t have been able to do this layout change without you.’

‘Oh yeah, I’m so bloody indispensable, I’ve been up here half an hour before anyone even noticed. Was it Joan that sent you up? She’s about the only one who would give a toss.’ Draining the coffee cup, I crumpled it in my hand and hurled it against the wall. The dam behind my eyes was dangerously close to bursting, and I so didn’t want to cry in front of Tony.

‘Nobody sent me. Marty, you’re freaking me out. I’ve never seen you like this! Is it too much for you, working over night like this?’ he asked, watching me as if I was an unexploded bomb about to go off.

‘Too much for me? You’re worried now whether it’s all too much for me?’ I laughed humourlessly. ‘Damn pity nobody thought to wonder that when I was doing your job, mine, and Sam’s. Is it too much for me! You have no bloody idea!’

‘How could I know, when you’re always saying you can manage!’ Tony protested. ‘You never say no, you’ll take anything on. I thought you enjoyed the challenge. I thought…’

‘But I can’t say no! That’s the whole bloody trouble!’ I snapped. ‘I never say no, even when I need to. Even when I should do. Do you really think I wanted to be here tonight? Of course I bloody didn’t! I’m going under, Tony, but nobody can see it. Nobody cares, even if they could see it. Not waving but drowning. And… and I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t. I want out. And this time I mean it. I really goddamn mean it.’

‘I don’t… Marty, what can I say? What can I do?’ Tony faltered, looking bewildered. ‘I just didn’t realise…’

‘Come on, you two slackers! Lets be havin’ yous!’

We both jumped as the door from the locker rooms crashed open and Bill blundered in, flushed and grinning.

I gave Tony a stony stare, daring him to say anything in front of Bill. Not that it would have mattered really – Bill was leaving in a couple of weeks, and, besides that, he’d already seen me fall apart once before – but I didn’t want the arrogant Scot to have anything else to lord it over me with.

‘Give us a minute, Bill,’ Tony said tersely, but Bill was never a master of subtlety. His grin just widened.

‘Not interrupting anything, am I, Tone? Does your missus know?’

Tony blushed right to the roots of his closely-cropped hair. ‘I left kindergarten a long time ago,’ he muttered. ‘Can’t you see, now’s not the time!’

Bill cocked his head, glancing from me to Tony. After a moment, he shrugged. ‘Joan asked me to come up. She wanted a word with the boss there, ‘bout kids books.’ He didn’t try to hide his annoyance that I’d been put in charge of the move round when I was only senior sales and he outranked me.

But he had given me the opportunity I needed to escape Tony’s questioning. I shot to my feet. ‘I’d better go down,’ I said quickly, the all-deceiving smile firmly back in place.

Tony tried to halt me with a look, but I was already gone, taking deep, steadying breaths as I trotted down the stairs. When I burst out onto the shop floor and headed towards Joan, no one could possibly have guessed how close to death I had been.

We never talked about that night, Tony and I, though in the weeks that followed, I noticed him watching me carefully. He wasn’t the only one watching me, either. I couldn’t prove it, but I was sure he asked Debbie to keep an eye on me, too. In their way, I suppose they did care, both of them, but it was all in vain. I carried on as if nothing had happened, my secrets held close to my heart. In fact, I probably worked harder than ever. Deep down, I knew things couldn’t go on for much longer as they were. Tony even tried to force me to slow down, going over my head to delegate my work. Bless him; he probably thought he could avert the disaster that was waiting to happen. Debbie came close to breaking me one day, too, telling me that she understood, and I could talk to her anytime. The poor, poor fools. They just never realised. No matter how hard they tried, no matter what they did, they just didn’t stand a chance. Nobody, after all, could possibly even hope to save me from myself.