‘Do you want to kiss me again?’ she says, in the end, because she can’t think of another way for things to go.

‘Do you want to?’

‘I don’t mind.’ Does he now not want to?

‘This whole thing’s …’

‘Yeah, it’s weird. I mean, it’s a random way to … you know. Get off with someone.’

‘I think,’ says Scott, ‘we probably stopped playing it for pretty good reasons. Not that … I mean, you’re really nice.’

‘So are you.’

‘It’s just that everyone else at this party …’

‘Yeah, I know!’

‘I’m not sure I can face going out there to kiss the rest of them.’

Becky laughs and Scott laughs too, like a new way out of this closet space has just opened up and they’ve both elected to take it.

‘What do we do now?’ asks Becky. ‘Do we just hide in here until they get bored?’

Scott reaches into his jeans pocket and takes out a small brown pill bottle. Unscrews the cap and shakes a pill into his palm. ‘I’m going to go down the rabbit hole to see where it leads me,’ he says.

‘What is it?’ she says.

‘Just a pill.’

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ Becky smiles. ‘Mary’s meant to be doing one with me later.’

‘I’ve got four. One’s for Brendan. He wanted two more. I’m guessing that was for the two of you. You can have yours, if you want?’

‘How much are they?’

‘Tenner.’

‘What are they like?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll let you know in about an hour! I might go and have a dance. Come up on the dancefloor.’ He smiles at her. ‘Thanks for not being weird about this whole … thing …’ And suddenly she doesn’t want him to go. Can she follow him downstairs?

‘Can I have mine?’ She rummages in her bag for her purse and hands him a ten-pound note.

‘Great. We’ll come up together. Drug buddies.’

He hands her a pill and she takes it quickly, before she can change her mind.

If Mary can break into new areas, then maybe so can she.

She kisses him on the cheek because she wants to let him know that she is going to be a good time when she’s high, and that she’s happy with herself and if anything goes wrong he should be a friend to her.

There is a roar outside. Kiss. Kiss.

‘When we go out there,’ he says to her, ‘we should say we found another Spin the Bottle group and had an orgy with them.’

She laughs. ‘Or we could just stay here for a bit? It’s kind of nice. Kind of Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you know? We could just push at this bit of wall and see where it goes.’