‘Come on, let’s get you home,’ she says.

‘Are you insane? Insane in the membrane?’ I’m singing and wide awake now. ‘I told you I wouldn’t spend another night under that stinking roof.’

‘I know. I know. I meant my home. Let’s get you back there.’

‘Your parents will be furious, and they’ll blame me.’ I give her my phone. ‘Look, it’s one in the morning and not a call. Mine probably don’t even notice. Check yours, I bet there’s zillions of missed calls. I bet they’ll have called out the cavalry.’

I’m stomping on the damp grass in my bare feet. ‘Do you honestly think we can just go on back there now and get hugs and food and warm beds and snuggle up close to each other and have sweet dreams?’

‘No way I’m leaving you here alone.’

‘No way I’m going back to your gaff with you now. We both stink of booze.’

‘No way I’m going without you.’

This is the moment inspiration hits. Heat rises in me and the hair on my arms spikes upwards. I start riffing on a theme, feeling like I’m Ireland’s answer to the King of Beatboys: Guys and girls and damage done/ Guys hurt girls/ Hurt girls = concerned parents = attention diverted from pissed wayward friend. This is genius. This is why I get As in English, when I pretty much fail everything else. ‘You have a powerful imagination,’ Miss White would say as she’d hand me back my pages topped with a gold star. ‘Powerful.’ And now the ideas are coming, in a torrent, like what I imagine King Em experiences as he floods the pages with his scorching rage. I can see the picture forming: me dripping in blood, clothes torn, sobbing, distraught, in need of care and medical attention. I’ve always liked the fact that Luce’s dad is a doc, some top-notch consultant saving lives, whereas mine is some guy with a suit and a briefcase, selling stuff. So, there I am – hurt, really hurt, and Luce’s parents are too concerned to be angry, even though I’m well aware of what they think of me. Particularly Mrs O’D. She practically wrinkles her nose every time she sees me. ‘That girl has trouble written all over her’. Well, tonight, Mrs O’D, I’m going to prove you spectacularly right.

‘What’s going through your mind?’ Luce says, crashing in on my buzz.

‘We could do it to ourselves.’ I point to the bottle. ‘We can do a lot of damage with that.’

‘Don’t be such an idiot. My parents are not going to go mental if we go home now. We can tell them the truth, tell them about your awful row with your mother and you needing to get out of the house and needing air and head-space.’