‘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.