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useless you are. Probably when your mouth is full of cheese sandwich and you can’t defend yourself.
    It was reassuring to learn that this is a common syndrome. I could tell the others felt relieved too. We were more cheerful that afternoon than when we were writing our obituaries, although I have noticed that these personal development sessions have encouraged us to talk about our feelings more. I am not sure this is altogether a good thing. What happens when it all goes wrong and there’s nowhere to hide?
    See also Codes; Happiness; Teaching; Why?
    indecent exposure
    It is a fact of life: in any town, even one as small as this, men often expose themselves to you. I feel rather like a nurse must feel about this. You see this little thing curled up like a shrimp and the expectant male face above it, waiting for you to react, and most of the time, it’s not remotely sexy or even frightening. Just a bit boring.
    Sally has a number of set phrases designed to wither a man at fifty paces, but that seems rather unnecessary. We’re all just trying our hardest to survive—admittedly, some more than others.
    See also Boxing; Weight
    influences
    My mother was a great one for lists. She even spoke in bullet points.
    “And another thing,” she’d say. Even when she was in full flow of one of her furies, she could tick off on her fingers all the points that made her angry.
    The list she particularly loved was all the bad influences on me. My problem was that I was easily led by so many people and things:
    Every English teacher I’d ever had. Especially Mr. Shepherd in year ten, who wanted to take me and Marian Riley on a camping holiday in his two-man tent after we’d been reading Thomas Hardy in class. We were going to go to Dorset and explore Hardy country, but my mother wouldn’t let me go.
    Suzanne Gibson. I never really understood this one. Suzanne lived in a hotel because her house had been repossessed when her father couldn’t pay the bills anymore. I always lived in fear that my mother would publicly accuse Suzanne of being a bad influence on me, for then Suzanne might think I’d been telling people we were friends when in fact she had never even bothered to look at me. She was far too glamorous.
    The “Cathy and Claire” column in
Jackie
magazine. Mum had read it once and been shocked by the sex advice offered. She never knew I’d written to them, explaining how I’d fallen in love with a girl in the Lower Sixth. I got a letter back from them saying that it was just a crush and that I should join more sporting clubs to broaden my interests and make me a more rounded person.
    Mr. and Mrs. Goodman, Sally’s parents. They were always too jolly and family-oriented for my mother. Apparently, it was a sign of how vulgar they were. I hadn’t realized until then that only common people are happy. It is posher as well as more interesting to be haunted by internal ghosts who make you miserable. Strangely, my mother liked Sally. She thought she’d come to a bad end and was therefore a good example for me of what not to do.
    See also Danger; Telephone Boxes; Underwear; Zzzz

J
    jacuzzi
    I have always liked the idea of meeting someone in a Jacuzzi. Of falling in love surrounded by shiny bubbles. Plus, when you’ve just swum yourself into a trance, you leave the rest of the world behind you. Relaxing after this is when I think you’d be able to talk about anything.
    At our local swimming pool, they turn the overhead lights off after nine o’clock at night and start playing country music through the loudspeakers. All the kids have gone home and there’re only adults left, plowing up and down the lengths, listening to words of love all around them and lit up from below the water so they look like gods.
    See also Imposter Syndrome; Mistaken Identity
    jealousy
    Why does Sally have to be given so much in life?
    It doesn’t really help her. She takes so much for granted. She complains about things as if she really doesn’t