It was a sunny if mild autumn in England that year and the fine weather afforded me plenty of opportunities to leave the house behind. Walking without a purpose somehow settled me and after the weeks of stifling heat, a British autumn was a welcome relief. I knew that the old Catherine would never have done this, but then, I mused, neither would the person I'd been in New York. My love for the Big Apple, which had been increasing day by day, seemed to have turned into something else at the very moment Roger had walked away from me. Only now I was outside, surrounded only by miles and miles of countryside, was I aware of the intense pressure I'd unconsciously been under for the past few months. It was as though I was just learning how to breathe again.

If my parents thought my behaviour since returning to England was odd, neither of them really voiced it in those first few weeks. My father was busy at work, proving that finances and the global markets waited for no man, and my mother maintained the same level of social engagements she always had. Those invitations were always extended to include me but after a few attempts, she stopped even asking. My absence that summer had wrought a change I'd thought impossible: I'd been allowed to grow up. Gone were the times when my parents felt they had any right to control what I did with my time. If I wanted to spend my days in the woods with the dogs and my evenings in bed with a book, they were not going to do a single thing to stop me or persuade me otherwise. It was exactly the kind of personal autonomy I'd been craving for the past few years.

It didn't seem to matter that making decisions for myself was the last thing I wanted to do anymore. All the choices I'd made for myself recently seemed to have been the wrong ones, ending in nothing but disaster and misery. I wanted orders, I wanted structure. I wanted somebody to take me by the hand and put me back on the path I'd followed since I'd been born, setting me straight in the world I knew again. My meeting with Olivia had only proven that I'd wandered far from the gilded streets she and my previous friends glided down and I had no way of working out how to rejoin them. With each invitation I rejected, I just seemed to get further away from the life I understood. I'd felt alone for most of my life, but now I knew how lonely felt.

My walks with the dogs were a small highlight in an otherwise fairly dismal existence that autumn. Labradors had been a family favourite since we'd been children and Chas and Dave were the newest pair. Both only five years old, they would merrily trot along the many paths through the local woods, their black coats gleaming in the dappled sunlight. Chas, the bulkier of the two, tended to stick to the safe routes through the woods, nose to the ground, tail wagging. Dave, on the other hand, would disappear for minutes at a time, following the trail of whatever animal he'd imagined he might find in the woods. The crashing sound of a seventy-pound Labrador warned any rabbits and squirrels away, and he'd return with his tail hanging at half-mast, before plunging away again moments later, fresh hope written on his grinning face. As my only companions on these walks, they certainly provided entertainment, even managing to drag my thoughts away from introspection for short periods of time.

Always, though, I would find myself turning back to the events of the summer. With each day that passed, the events of that small corner of New York City seemed less real and more like a dream. So little had changed around me in England that it was as though I'd simply been to sleep for a month, waking to find nobody else affected by what had happened. With nobody to share the experience with, it was almost impossible to believe that anything had happened at all.

And then something would happen and it would hit me all over. I'd hear a song on the radio or see an advert on the television and it would, somehow, plunge me back into that top floor apartment all over again. Such tiny things were like a punch to my stomach and I'd find myself suddenly gasping for breath all over again, wishing that it had all been a dream, a nightmare even, and that simply opening my eyes would make it all go away. They would come out of nowhere and I'd be reminded that leaving New York hadn't been enough. It would never be enough.

Some days would bring more pertinent reminders than others. By the beginning of October, I had already had my first test to see whether the PEP treatment had worked. Whilst it had come back negative, I knew that I would need testing again twice within the next six months. It was a small comfort, though, and all I could do in the meantime was hope for the best and try to put it to the back of my mind.

Mark's letters were less easy to forget about. September had brought not one, but two letters clattering through my letterbox. They were unassuming, only distinguishable from the rest of the post due to the stamps and the airmail sticker. Nothing suggested they were anything other than someone enquiring after a friend. And yet I dropped them both into the bottom drawer next to my bed, unopened. He was one of the few people who knew about this summer, who would be able to relate to some of what I was feeling now. Somehow, that mere fact meant that I didn't want to even touch the letters more than necessary. If I was beginning to realise that it wasn't an awful dream, I wasn't quite ready to face the reality of what I'd left behind.

And so each day followed a similar pattern that autumn as I existed in a strange state of limbo. My trip to America had only left me more unsure than ever who I was and who I wanted to be. Spending time by myself in the countryside didn't seem to be the solution to my problem but I was at a loss as to what was. More than anything, I wanted someone to make the last few months go away.

But that was surely an impossibility.

The two dogs leapt up suddenly as the doorbell rang. Several weeks ago they wouldn't have had the energy or interest to bother. Their improved fitness had mixed benefits, I mused as Dave's rudder-like tale sent the umbrella stand in the hall crashing to the floor. By the time I reached the front door, both dogs had remembered their manners and were sat down, tails thudding, eager to greet whoever happened to be on the other side of the door.

Their enthusiasm allowed me several seconds to regain my composure. Whilst they gleefully greeted Sam, my mind scrambled back to the last time we'd seen each other, almost three months ago. The look on his face and the words that had come out of his mouth hadn't led me to assume he'd be stood on my parents' doorstep this short time later, his mouth stretching into a smile as he patted Chas and Dave. Yet here he was, and something inside of me leapt up, disproportionately pleased to see him.

'Catherine,' he greeted me finally.

'Hello.' I busied myself by reaching for Chas's collar, burying my hands in the thick fur at the back of his neck. 'I... didn't know you were calling around.' People didn't usually just drop into my parents' house without prior warning.

'It wasn't planned.' Sam shifted his weight and I realised that the supposedly easy-going smile was in fact hiding a degree of nervousness. It was something I had never expected to see, but perhaps I should have done. The last time we'd spoken had descended into tearful accusations on both sides; now I considered it I realised I was nervous too. 'I was just in the area. I'm filming something down the road, and when I saw Diane a few weeks ago she mentioned that you were staying here...' He shook his head suddenly. 'If you're busy I can come back...'

I had no idea what I was going to say until the words came flying out. 'No!' Dave jumped at the abrupt tone to my voice. 'I mean... I'm just on my way out.' I gestured vaguely towards the battered boots and scruffy jeans I had on, suddenly wishing I'd done something more when I got dressed that morning. 'Taking the dogs out.'

As if on cue, both of them barked excitedly and Dave knocked the umbrella stand over again.

Sam laughed as he helped me lift it back up. 'I could come with you. If you like.'

I looked up at him and I was hit again by his endearingly charming smile and chocolate brown eyes, just as I had been three years ago. His skin was clear and glowing. He looked every inch the up-and-coming film star he was. Every inch of him spoke of the healthy, privileged young man he was. There couldn't have been a greater contrast between him and Roger.

'I'd like that,' I said eventually. 'I'd like that a lot.'

Autumn turned to winter and by mid-December it was as though the summer had never happened. I was Catherine Carter once again, on the guest lists of all the major bars and clubs in London, and invited to all the important parties. My summer absence was never mentioned and I found myself perfectly able to reassume the position I'd held before all of that. It was an easy role to play; I'd been doing it all my life. I moved from party to gala dinner effortlessly, my make-up flawless and somehow conjuring up an everlasting supply of fresh outfits. My hair remained firmly blonde, with any hint of re-growth removed at my six-weekly salon appointments, and my nails were kept neatly short and varnished. Any hint of Cat was completely eliminated. It seemed easier.

My old friends accepted me back with barely a question. Nobody asked where I'd been or what had happened, but there was no doubt that the situation had been discussed endlessly behind my back, with all manner of theories put forward as to what had possessed me to leave in the first place, and what exactly had driven me back so unexpectedly. These rumours would, I knew, have been wild and laughable, as all the rumours I'd ever heard before had been. And, just as I'd seen time after time over the years, not a whisper of them ever reached me. If I dared to think it over for more than a few minutes, the sheer falseness of the situation would have hit home. The contrast between this world and the one I'd left behind in Alphabet City was too clear to face, and so I pushed it away, preferring to believe in the enthusiastic greetings from acquaintances I hadn't seen in several months.

A major part of being Catherine Carter was arriving at social functions with Sam Bovey and, perhaps more importantly, leaving at the end of the evening with him. Becoming Sam's girlfriend again came easily to me. He gave no apologies for the behaviour he'd exhibited before I'd left him in the summer, and I never demanded any promises that he would change. Instead, his arm found its old home around my waist, and I readjusted to staring at the cracks in the ceiling, feeling nothing, as he lay snoring next to me. I remembered what it was like to exist in a bubble, feeling nothing. All I could think was that it was less painful than anything I'd experienced recently.

As the Christmas lights went up on Oxford Street and the party season kicked into a higher gear than ever, I looked forward to the new year and leaving everything else behind. It was time to put Roger Davis firmly out of my mind and move forward.

I thought it would be easy.

When the telephone rang during Sunday dinner, I thought little of it. My mother excused herself and left the table, a motion barely noticed by anybody as the rest of my family discussed the promotion James had recently received at work. For my part, I kept quiet, not daring to say anything in case my true feelings (that it was easy to get a promotion when your father was the boss) were revealed. Even so, despite my disinterest in the proceedings, I found myself drawn into the general hubbub around the table, so that when my mother returned it took me several seconds to register that it was me she was talking to.

'Catherine, there's a man on the phone for you.' A frown had settled on her face.

'A man?' Puzzled, I stood up. 'Is it Sam?' Though he'd been invited to dinner today, Sam was currently in France shooting an independent film, and wouldn't be back in England until a week on Friday, only the day before Christmas Eve. It was just possible he might have called to see how everything was going.

'Of course not. He's American.'

I dropped my napkin. It was illogical, and yet my mind instantly flew to one man in particular, one American in particular. 'Did he... say who he was?'

'He said his name was Mark,' my mother replied, her tone of voice indicating that she didn't entirely believe him. 'Well, are you going or not?' she added a little impatiently.

'Yes.' I scraped my chair back along the floor, earning myself a wince from my father. 'I'll... I won't be a minute, please excuse me.'

The telephone was in the entrance hall to the house, a short walk from the dining room, and yet it seemed endless on that occasion. Each step seemed to take me nearer to the weeks I'd tried to forget and further away from the life I'd tried to cultivate since returning to England. Everything in me was fighting against picking the receiver up, my brain sending alarm bells across my body, trying to prevent me from plunging myself back into that hell once again. But something stronger forced my mouth open finally.

'Hello?'

'Cat? It's Mark. How are you?' The words were awkward and stilted, and he sounded so strange on the telephone that for several moments I doubted whether it really was him.

Hesitantly, I replied, 'I'm... okay. Thank you. How are you?' The pleasantries came as naturally to me as breathing.

'Yeah, I'm fine, I'm...' Suddenly he broke off, and with his next words the Mark I knew came flooding back. 'Actually, it's not so good, Cat. And... I'm sorry for phoning like this, I didn't know what else to do, I... should probably have phoned earlier, but when you didn't reply to my last letter... I thought you would, you see, but we've heard nothing and... well, he's...'

'Mark.' Reluctantly, I interrupted the stream of words as he struggled to express what it was he'd called for. Dreading the answer, I forced myself to ask, 'What's happened?'

There was a long terrible silence. And then, 'He's dying, Cat. Collins is dying.'