‘What is “tutu-clad fairy” and “fanatist”?’ she asks, shaking her head, not really wanting to know the answer.

I pace the floor, hoping to get a blast of inspiration à la King Em. I try to generate heat and excitement but something essential is not working in me: I can’t even drum up a lyric. I take out the pad of paper and write HELP in a big scrawl, WE ARE IN DANGER. This is beyond stupid, one of my more ‘harebrained’ ideas as Dad would say, and I know it, but coming into contact with Doc O’D has thrown this life into sharp relief – seeing him has pierced through this weird fog of denial. He brought my old life, my old self into the room with him, and I watched this new me from her vantage point, and she said: No fucking way, Sammy, no more. It’s time, time to get a grip, time to take some action, time to take your life back, whatever the hell that means. Whatever the hell it means – it means I can’t go on numbing out with drugs, booze and TV; I can’t go on pretending to myself that it’s only short term, that it’s still my choice, that it’s not really so bad … and that I’ll be paid.

The more I think about the possibility of Doc O’D being our ticket out of here, the less I’m convinced by it. His paternal impulses are seriously lacking. Neither he nor Mrs O’D ever did anything to save me from that house, and they knew, Luce told them, and their response was to deny it all and keep their daughter as far away from me as possible. A thump in my stomach tells me to wake up and listen. We need to take matters into our own hands now, no more waiting for Mr effing Godot (the single most boring, pointless play we were forced to sit through by Miss White). We’ll end up like those looners talking to themselves, lost in madness, if we don’t take action on our behalf. Resolve builds in me as I present Nico with my work of art: HELP WE ARE IN DANGER – big letters on a tiny scrap of paper.

She doesn’t look convinced. It’s not exactly an original.

‘Where you put it?’

‘Up my bottom?’

She looks closely at me, hoping I’m trying to be funny. Irina has been known to make us bend over on occasion.

‘Under my tongue?’ I say. Ridiculous.

‘I put pill there, after she cleaned my tongue, and she never notice.’

So, I was right.

‘But the paper will get wet,’ she says, after a moment.

I mull that one over. Will the ink smudge? ‘We can hold our tongues loosely.’

‘How we speak?’

‘You manage with the pill. And anyway, they never really listen to a word we say.’