*In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost

In the initial days it was impossible to retain any kind of information. I’d forget things instantly. It was impossible to remember things like cash for teacher’s gift collections at school or any fees that were due. I had to write everything down and the house was covered with Post-its. Unlike their romantic predecessors these said things like: Ruui from Barclays is coming at 12, or the cat needs to have his manhood chopped. The tiny heart-breaking commonplace.

The new Pod was in full swing. They were like cabinet ministers. Minister of travel and transport, minister of cat. They sat me down and premised all their questions with- it doesn’t matter if you can’t remember but- who is your motor insurance with? And did Gumby have a pension? And where do you keep your car permits? There were so many forms, information about our old life, a hundred agonies in black and white.

I didn’t really know. Then Gautom would say, “there’s an A.A. file in the filing cabinet.”

We have files… who knew?! I was pretty redundant and offered no answers. They were there to fix things, make things better and they did. I did what I could to help them but I did think- now is probably not a good time to mention that when we first moved into this house it had stone floors which were very cold to walk on in bare feet, so James would meet me at the Kitchen entrance and I would climb aboard his feet and he would ferry me over to my seat at the table with buttery toast in mouth as he was holding my hands for balance, dizzy and drenched in happiness- this I kept to myself but wondered who might be in charge of fixing this particular problem.

Or might they like to come back , once the paperwork was sorted, to let me give them a fashion show after a day of shopping and tell me which dress to take back and which to keep. Or could they possibly return some evening when the mood so took me, or the right FUNK track came on the radio, to show them what five years under the tutelage of Jimmy Williams at Pineapple dance studios looked like. Or could they come back in a year to teach Flynn how to ride a bike or teach Celeste to tie her shoelaces? I don’t think they have ministers for that, but they really should

For Grainne.

• Inferno