She looks like she knows what she’s talking about. In spite of my little alien doing his kung-fu thing inside, I tell myself that maybe I am better off here, in a tightly controlled environment where the clients are vetted, as ‘Kathleen’ said. It can’t be that hard to just walk away anyway. Haven’t seen any bars on windows or anything. I’ll give it a go and see what the pay is like, see what kind of client I have tonight. ‘One day at a time, sweet Jesus’, Dad used to say when my mind would be buzzing with worry. ‘Nothing’s ever as bad as you think it’s going to be, my little catastrophist.’

Anyplace but home, I chant silently.

Calm the head, Sammy. Breathe in, breathe out. ‘When exactly will the money I earn be mine?’ I ask.

‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘I will organise payment, take my cut, pay Kathleen her fee, and then give you yours.’

I’m impressed with how good her English is. Suddenly I see a flash of me at fifty: preserved, stinking rich and with a gaggle of young ones, all working for me. I wonder if that’s how Kathleen got where she is; there’s no way she worked her way through the ranks with a face like that, or maybe the face really doesn’t come into it all. I look closely at this one in front of me and see that beneath all that caked make-up she’s pretty, and pretty young still, maybe mid-twenties. And already she’s graduated.

My body feels like it’s one of those fizzy sherbet dips that Granny Mona used to bring me, the ones you dip the liquorice in, the powder bursting in your mouth. I could do with some of the clear stuff to calm me down. I need to lie on the grass, see the sky, stare at the clouds and trip out, seeing shapes where there are none. As I make my way back to the bedroom a small, black-haired Asian girl comes out of a room, wearing spiky heels, a belly-top and tight mini: the requisite uniform. Brian got it right, all right. She has a far-off look in her eyes and her body kind of flows. She smiles and I see that her eyes are out of focus; she seems like she’s floating above or beside herself. She manages a wave.

‘I’m Ling,’ she says.

‘Sam.’

‘Off to work I go!’

‘Hey-ho, hey-ho,’ I say.

She looks at me funny. Maybe she doesn’t share the same cultural references. I wonder what fairytales she grew up with, if any. She sways towards the door, and when she opens it, there will be a man waiting on the other side to whisk her away to his castle.