‘You’re a cheeky young one,’ he says, all delighted with himself. He gets up, dresses slowly, carefully rearranging his tie, then he throws ten euros on the bed, unlocks the door and leaves with the key still in his pocket.

‘Hey,’ I shout after him, ‘it’s fifty. And I want my key back.’ I think back to the ‘how much’ moment and realise I didn’t name my price. I wonder would it have made any difference anyway.

I let the asshole go and light a candle, White Linen, and wave it around the room, then rip the sheets off and snuggle into the new duvet cover, wrapping it tightly around me. I cover my head, inhaling the smell of clean cotton, until I have to come up for air. My hand reaches for the naggin on the bedside table and I swallow, erasing the sensation of what went before. The fiery liquid purifies and numbs. Those lines zigzagging across the ceiling begin to look like giant zips, all ready for the opening. Laughter erupts out of me, harsh, teary, uncontrollable. My stomach spasms. I hear footsteps on the stairs stop outside my room, and then a female voice. ‘Everything ok in there?’

Hohohohoho. I hold my sides, splutter, choke.

The woman’s head pops around the door. ‘I thought you were being strangled.’

Hahahahahaha.

‘Are you ok?’

I can’t speak.

‘Did he hurt you?’

I shake my head from side to side, side to side like the head-banger that I am. The woman walks over to the bed, puts her hand on my arm and looks at me. She has washed-out blue eyes.

‘Stop that now,’ she says, like she’s speaking to a toddler. My stomach is heaving and the tears are pushing. I wonder has anyone died from laughing. Next thing I know she’s slapping me on the face.

‘Hey,’ I say, which seems such a ridiculous thing to say under the circumstances that it starts me off all over again.

This time she leaves the room and returns a moment later with a glass full of water, which she throws on my face.

‘Bitch.’

‘Calm down,’ the woman says. ‘Shhhhhhh.’

I reach out to hit her, but she grabs me firmly by the wrist and sits on the bed. I wriggle up so I’m sitting on a level with her.

‘What happened, love? Are you going to tell me? Did he hurt you?’

I start to shake my head again and she grabs it between her hands. ‘How old are you?’

This woman is fine-boned and tiny, dried-out with dyed-blonde hair, and looks about as old as Luce’s mum.

‘How old are you?’ I say back.

She grins. ‘Wise-ass. If you’re not careful, in a few years you’ll look like me.’ She gestures to the vodka. ‘That stuff will wreck you.’