The Forgotten Guide to Happiness: The unmissable debut, perfect for anyone who loved THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS

She lowered her fingers and turned her attention from the screen to me. ‘You’re saying you’ll only get paid once you’ve written a new book?’

‘Yes.’ I shouldn’t have poured my heart out to her – bad mistake. I thought she’d feel sorry for me, but here she was holding it against me already.

She looked at her screen again. ‘You currently don’t have sufficient funds to cover your direct debits.’

‘Exactly! That’s why I’m here.’

She was so frosty you would have thought I was asking her to lend me money out of her own pocket. Where was the compassion, the eagerness to help?

After a bit more tapping and clicking, she said, ‘As you have reached your overdraft limit, we can’t extend it. A limit is a limit,’ she explained, enunciating clearly.

It was the way she said it that annoyed me. ‘Hey, I know what a limit is! Words are my life!’ Knowing how ridiculous I sounded, but I was desperate. This wasn’t going at all the way I’d imagined. I hadn’t realised that banks love you when you have money, and they go off you when you don’t, like the worst sort of friends. ‘So what do I do now? If you stop my direct debits I won’t be able to pay my rent and I’ll be homeless. Is that what you want?’

‘I would like to remind you not to raise your voice.’ She pointed to a sign by the window which read: Abuse of advisors will not be tolerated.

I’d always wondered why that notice was there, and now I knew. I jumped to my feet in frustration.

‘Well you’re not getting this,’ I said, waving my royalty cheque. Impulsively, I tore it up and threw the bits over the table. My heart was pumping hard as I walked towards the stairs.

One day’s overdraft money lost in a pointless gesture. I immediately regretted it.

Back home, I lay on the lemon sofa and realised to my dismay I was going to have to ring my mother for help. She lives in Loano, Italy. (Literally, the last resort.) She can detect laziness even over the phone so as I pressed her number I sat on the edge of my desk so as to sound alert and also to enjoy the view which in all probability wasn’t going to be mine for much longer.

‘Pronto!’ she answered impatiently.

‘Mum? It’s me. Lana,’ I added for clarity.

‘Oh, this is a surprise,’ she said.

She’d been a teacher, and then a head teacher, and after the divorce she’d taken early retirement and gone to the Italian Riviera to boss a whole new country around for a change. I can spot a teacher a mile off. They’re the ones telling people off.

I took a deep breath and once again I felt the burning shame of failure. ‘Listen, I’ve got something to tell you. My new book got turned down yesterday.’

‘Got? You mean it was turned down.’

See?

Now that she’d corrected my grammar, she waited for me to go on.

‘Well, that’s it,’ I said. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you.’

‘Oh,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps now is a good time to think about doing something else.’

‘But I don’t want to.’ My voice started to rise. Right. Be calm. Regroup. Clear throat. ‘I didn’t call you for advice. The point is, without Mark, I can’t afford next month’s rent.’

She was silent for a long moment. ‘You’re calling to borrow money?’

‘Yes, please. It’s just until I come up with a new story.’

‘Why don’t you try asking the bank?’

Desperation made me flippant. ‘I have tried them, and now I’m trying you.’

‘I see.’ She managed to put a surprising amount of disapproval into that short sentence.

When I was little, someone gave her a book by Libby Purves called How (Not) to Be a Perfect Mother, and she’s stuck rigidly to the concept ever since.

After a long silence, she sighed deeply. ‘Do you want to come and stay here for a while?’

Did I? It wasn’t the solution I would have chosen, but it was still a solution and I grasped it, trying not to sound too eager.

‘I sort of do,’ I said.

‘Sort of do?’

‘Is that not grammatically correct?’

‘Come then, if that’s what you’d like.’

Honestly, no wonder I prefer making things up to real life. ‘But would you like me to come? You know, with enthusiasm?’

‘You’re my daughter,’ she said, which wasn’t really an answer.

I probably expect too much of her. She’s never been a Cath Kidston, cupcake-baking type of mother. If I went to stay it would like having twenty-four-hour private tuition from her. And from her point of view, she would be wasting her teaching skills on a bratty and reluctant pupil. We love each other but we don’t get each other in the slightest.

I’m guessing this was going through her mind, too. ‘Why don’t you go back to journalism?’ she suggested.

‘Definitely not! I hated that job. I hated visiting people when they were at their worst. I hated court reports, and seeing the looks on their families’ faces as their men were described as being of “bad character”. I loathed the whole Crufts Doc in Dog Collar Shock thing. Yuk!’

‘In that case, have you thought about teaching creative writing?’ she suggested.

‘Hah! Those that can’t, teach,’ I said bitterly, managing to insult us both in one sentence. I’d turned down a job as tutor at the London Literary Society a few months previously on the grounds I was too busy writing my sequel. Well, I’d had money then; I could afford to.

‘Actually, you make a far better teacher if you can do a thing,’ my mother said, ‘and despite your current setback you’re a published, successful author. Capitalise on it.’

‘Yee-ees.’ I’ve never fancied teaching because I’m no good at telling people what to do but I didn’t argue because she’d just said I was a successful author – the first time she’d ever acknowledged it. It gave me a bit of a lift, to be honest. ‘Thanks, I’ll think about it.’

‘Good!’

Before I could say anything else, she hung up.

I always forget that about her, that she comes to the end of a call and hangs up. Mind you, it does away with the closing awkwardness of lovely to talk to you, yes, same, see you soon, yeah great, have a good day, call me, I will, lots of love, etc., but it still takes me by surprise.

I stood by the window and imagined getting a job.

It would just be for money, I told myself.

I would still write in my spare time.