I saw Stuart in the High Street, struggling with some carrier bags weighing him down on one side, his jacket sleeve on the other side empty. He had his back to me, heading in the direction of Talbot Street, making slow progress.

I should have immediately caught up with him, offered to give him a hand with the bags, and enjoyed his company on the last few hundred yards back to the house.

Of course, I did none of these things. I skulked around in the doorway of the hairdresser’s for a few minutes, then pretended to study the window of the bookshop, keeping my head down until he’d turned the corner and was out of sight.

It wasn’t just the embarrassment about screaming my head off just because I’d woken up on his sofa. The more I’d thought about it since, the worse it got. He was a doctor, a mental health practitioner at that. He was everyone and everything I’d spent the last three years trying to avoid. He smelled of hospitals, he emanated authority like a scent: people telling you what to do, diagnosing you, feeding you drugs, making decisions for you, steering your life down a path they could control.

I chanced a glance up to the right, around the various bodies wrapped in warm coats and cars and buses, to see if he was still there.

‘Thought it was you. How are you?’

I spun round to find him at my left shoulder, another bag added to those weighing him down.

‘I’m okay, thanks. Gosh, those look heavy.’

‘They are, a bit.’

He must have turned around when I wasn’t looking, gone back into the pharmacy on the corner. I hesitated for a moment, knowing that I couldn’t very well leave him to walk home with those bags and realising that it would mean I couldn’t take my usual route home via the alleyway at the back.

‘Are you walking my way?’ he said with a smile.

I felt unreasonably bad-tempered, mainly at my pathetic attempt to avoid him and the fact that I’d not had the sense to go inside the shop and hide myself away properly. I contemplated saying no, I thought about making some excuse about meeting someone, but sometimes it was just easier to give in.

‘Here, let me take those bags for you,’ I said as we started walking.

‘It’s alright, really,’ he said.

‘Some of them, then.’

‘Thanks.’ He handed over two of the lightest ones and we carried on walking.

‘How’s the shoulder?’

‘Bit better today, I think. It’ll probably hurt more later. I only came out to get some milk.’

We walked along in silence for a while. I felt jumpy, as if I wanted to break into a run. He kept a respectable distance between us, so much that people walking in the opposite direction kept walking in between us. I wondered if he was having trouble keeping up with me.

‘It’s your appointment tomorrow, isn’t it?’ he asked at last.

I slowed down a little until he drew level. I didn’t want to be talking about medical shit in the High Street. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘You feeling okay about it?’

‘I guess so.’

We crossed the road and turned into Talbot Street. There were fewer people down here, and the pavement was narrower.

‘Sorry I gave you a fright the other day. I should have woken you up, I think.’

‘I shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the first place. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.’

I felt him give me a look, but I kept my eyes straight ahead.

‘I know this must be hard for you,’ he said.

That did it. I turned to face him, the bags swinging round abruptly and hitting my legs. ‘No, Stuart, you don’t know at all,’ I said. ‘You have no idea. You think you know everything just because you peer into people’s minds every day. Well, you know nothing at all about what’s going on in mine.’

It might well be true that he was used to outbursts like this, used to people challenging him, but perhaps not on the pavement outside his house. He looked startled, and for a moment he was lost for words, so I seized the chance that gave me.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ I said, putting the bags down. He would have to carry them upstairs himself.

‘Where are you going?’

‘No idea,’ I said, walking away. ‘I just don’t feel like going in yet.’

I heard the door open and slam shut behind him, and only then did I look over my shoulder. He’d gone inside. I was nearly level with the alleyway, and for a moment I thought about going straight down there and checking the house from the back, but I was too angry. I felt agitated, my nerves twanging like an elastic band that had been stretched too thin.