And he did come back – twenty minutes later – still half-naked, still sweaty but without the boxes and accompanied by a young blonde. She had flecks of white paint on her dungarees and an orange boob tube on underneath a loose-fitting fishnet vest – Fun Times at Guantánamo.

They were holding hands.

I edged around the van to the back, walking in the other direction towards the row of shops. When I got to the ice cream kiosk, I turned back to see her get in the passenger’s side and close the door. The van did a U-turn in the road and passed me by without a second glance. They were laughing.

‘Yeah. That’d be right,’ I said, turning and walking straight into a wall called Tenoch.

‘Hey, you ready for your ice cream?’ He reached into his trouser pocket for a wad of cash. At least one of the bills had spots of red on it.

‘Yeah,’ I said, screwing up Rafael’s note and tossing it into the nearest trash can. It no longer sparked joy. ‘Rum ’n’ raisin, please. A fucking big one.’

Monday, 18 February – Hacienda Santuario

1. Men
2. Men called Rafael
3. Rafael’s mum for giving birth to the dickhead to begin with
4. Rafael’s grandmother for being horny ever
5. Women. For not being as fanciable for men

The surgeries themselves, as Dr Gonzales had said, were all incremental, over the next few months and the best I can say about them was that at least the physical pain took my mind off the pain in my own head.

LIPOSUCTION/TUMMY TUCK

This was first and I was in bed for two full weeks after – swollen, grogged-up on pain meds and barely able to do anything but sleep and slurp soup. Ibuprofen and Tylenol were constant bed mates. I couldn’t walk properly so I’d have to shuffle like an 80-year-old with chronic spine curvature who’d crapped herself.

Ironically, it was gridlock below. I became very constipated and when it did finally make an appearance, it was like excreting a concrete traffic cone.

Paco revelled in all my discomfort, of course. The car journeys were almost as excruciating as the agony of each op.

‘Haha, chica, you wanna stop and get more painkillers, huh? You want a lil water to make those painkillers work faster? Is it burning, the pain? You wanna see your face in the mirror, all cut up?’

‘Either shut the fuck up or grow the fuck up, will you?’

‘Hoho, there she is! There’s my serial killer! Doesn’t take much to bring her out, does it?’

Whenever I complained to Tenoch about Paco, all he would say was ‘You have to ignore him. This is what he does – he will delight in upsetting you. It gives him a thrill. He does with Celestina too.’

‘And that makes it all right, does it?’