Mrs Mop: ‘Go on, dear, do yourself a favour.’

Cleopatra (hoarsely): ‘Go on, you bastard, fuck me.’

This time Patrick had to use his tie. He wound it around his bicep several times and gripped it in his teeth, baring his gums like a snarling dog.

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor (draining a glass of Jameson’s): ‘She took to the leech with rowdy Saxon abandon crying, “I’ve always wanted to be in two places at once.” ’

Courtier (excitedly): ‘A hit, a palpable hit.’

Captain Kirk: ‘Warp factor ten, Mr Sulu.’

Attila the Hun (basso profundo): ‘I play football with the heads of my enemies. I ride under triumphal arches, my horse’s hooves striking sparks from the cobblestones, the slaves of Rome strewing flowers in my path.’

Patrick fell off the chair and curled up on the floor. The brutality of the rush left him winded and amazed. He shook from the violence of his own heartbeat, like a man cowering under the spinning blades of a helicopter. His limbs were paralysed with tension and he imagined his veins, as thin and brittle as the stems of champagne glasses, snapping if he tried to unbend his arms. Without heroin he would die of a heart attack. ‘Just fuck off, the lot of you,’ he murmured.

Honest John (shaking his head): ‘What a vicious bastard, eh, that Attila. Dear, oh dear. “Wot you staring at?” he said. “Nothing,” I said. “Well, don’t fucking do it, all right?” he said.’ (Shakes his head.) ‘Vicious!’

Nanny: ‘Nanny says if you don’t stop talking in silly voices, the wind will change, and you won’t be able to stop.’

Boy (desperately): ‘But I want to stop, Nanny.’

Nanny: ‘ “I want” gets nowhere.’

Sergeant: ‘Get a grip on yourself, laddie.’ (Screaming): ‘Quick march! Left, right. Left, right.’

Patrick’s legs slid back and forth across the carpet, like a tipped-over wind-up doll.

Short notice in The Times’ Death Column: ‘MELROSE. On 25 May, peacefully, after a happy day in the Pierre Hotel. Patrick, aged 22, loving son of David and Eleanor, will be sadly missed by Attila the Hun, Mrs Mop, Indignant Eric, and his many friends, too numerous to enumerate.’

Gift o’ the Gab O’Connor: ‘A poor unfortunate soul. If he was not twitching like the severed leg of a galvanized frog, it was only because the mood lay heavy on him, like pennies on the eyelids of the dead.’ (Drains a tumbler of Jameson’s.)

Nanny (older now, her memory no longer what it was): ‘I can’t get used to it, he was such a lovely little boy. Always called him “my precious pet”, I remember. Always said, “Don’t forget that Nanny loves you.” ’