The house wasn’t aired enough. We didn’t open windows. It always smelt. It smelt of the dog, the chip pan, of farts and sweat. Different types of sweat: my mother’s honestly earned and nervous, me and my brothers’ fetid and hormonal, my nan’s perfumed with lavender. But the smell I hate remembering most of all, out of all those foul stenches, is the smell of alpine air fresheners. That smell epitomizes my mum’s desperate, pointless grasp at middle-class respectability and it depresses me. Really depresses me.

The TV was only ever off for a few short hours, after me and my brother had finally slunk off to our rooms, ostensibly to catch a few zeds. The silence started to hum. I didn’t sleep at night. I dreamt. Dreaming is what most empty and confused teenagers do. The difference being, dreaming is all that most of them do. Changing dreams into ambition, that’s what sorts the men from the boys. It was in those short, quiet hours when the TV was not blaring that I made my plans to be great. I wrote songs and practised on my guitar and swore to myself that I’d do anything, anything at all, to get to where I knew I should be. I’d work hard, I’d audition, I’d move to London, I’d ignore the word no, I’d keep trying, I’d win people over, I’d screw people over if I had to. I’d do it all.

4. Fern

Flowers are romantic. That much is accepted by everybody, whether it’s a newly engaged woman wondering about the structure of her bouquet or some sorry-assed adulterer that’s been caught with his willy out and wants to try to make amends with his missus. Everyone knows flowers are a good place to start when dealing with matters of the heart.

That’s why I’m delighted to be surrounded by them in the shop every day, especially at the moment. Adam and I are barely speaking to one another.