I initially thought she looked about nineteen, but on closer inspection her face is wizened, skin stretched taut, hollows under her eyes and cheekbones. ‘I’m Linda.’ She extends a bony, veiny hand. ‘Sonya,’ I say, though I really want to lie. I’m not sure I’m up to this – commingling, bonding. Is that what the Malory Towers lot were at? Tina is the only friend I ever really had – and Tina, always off her face, was never really there anyway.

The noise in the dining hall is raucous, not what I expected from a place like this. There are a lot more men than women. I try to count: possibly sixtyish in total, three quarters male. Clamp one hand over the other to stop the tremors, which may just be nerves. A twitch above my right eyebrow. I’m being watched, my legs almost buckling under me with the weight of the surveillance. Only playing a part, this isn’t real. I inspect the congealed food sitting behind a glass casing. ‘Bit late, love,’ says a tiny woman with a hairnet placed precariously over the top of her ponytail. ‘I can get you some pudding ahead of the others, if you like?’ I push out a thank you past my thirsty tongue. My eyes wander, taking in the yellow-stained, pockmarked walls, the linoleum floor, synthetic and shiny, seemingly moving beneath my feet. I pull my gaze towards the one small window, high above my eyeline, which allows no sense of the outdoors in.

‘There you go, love,’ the remarkably small, blanked-out face, says. ‘Rice pudding.’

I turn back towards the room – which I try to imagine is full of an appreciative audience, instead of nosy, sly glances – and see my new room-mate waving at me. Lisa or Linda or something. Her mouth’s wide open and her teeth are crooked and small, and yellow, which may or may not be the light.

‘How’ya?’ One of the older women greets me as I approach the table, not looking for a response as she attacks the last of the gristle on her plate. I swallow down bile.

‘Good you came,’ Lisa or Linda says. ‘Get that into you, now. Nothing till the morning.’

I spoon big lumps of the rice pudding, which tastes nothing like rice but rather some kind of lard, into my mouth, avoiding the act of speaking. I pretend I’m playing helicopters with Tommy. He’d like this: innocuous in colour and texture, and no living thing murdered in the making, or so I’d convince him. If I will it hard enough I can conjure his little warm body sitting on my knee, a shield against the world. Lllove you, Yaya. Bigger better brighter than the wideroundy world. Rat-a-tat. Boom. He points to his heart. My stomach bloats after a few mouthfuls and that old familiar pain settles in my guts. Could I ask for an antacid, or something to soothe the fire? That used to do it, before I discovered the liquid silk that could anaesthetise me to everything. A craving takes over my whole body, a longing that is physical and intense and sweet and powerful and painful. As if on the verge of an orgasm that will always be on the brink, never satisfied.