Mother is mounting the steps behind her and Luce wills herself not to look back, to hold her nerve, not to give up on her best friend. Louder now, ‘It’s Luce’, and the door opens a crack and my tear-stained face – blotchy, bloated and bright red, for full effect – peers around the gap. My arm pulls her in. Her breath is coming fast and shallow. Just from looking at me she seems as if she might faint. Luce hates to see anyone upset, most of all me. Even though I try not to let it in and I’m old enough to know the score, last night’s shenanigans were bad, even by this house’s standards (although I can’t be sure it really happened the way I think it happened, I was half asleep and I’m prone to nightmares and hyper-imaginings and lying, even to myself). Thing is, I don’t like her coming into my room in the middle of the night to stare, or whatever it is she’s doing, and I told her as much. I told her to fuck off and she said, ‘How dare you speak to your mother like that?’ in that haughty injured tone she has, and then I couldn’t sleep and my airwaves closed down and my head sped up and I lay there, rigid and tumbling inside.

‘Come on, Sam, let’s get out of here,’ Luce says. ‘Dad gave me this … so pizza?’ She holds out twenty quid. ‘Let’s get a movie and some grub.’ She notices that I’m wearing new high, high wedges and a short, black leather mini with a tight T-shirt. A present from Brian. ‘Where are you going dressed like that?’ she says.

‘Maximum exposure,’ I say, winking. She knows this particular one – it’s what I say when she asks me why I roll my uniform so high. ‘Don’t you start anyway, you sound like the aul wan below. Come on, let’s go.’

‘Aren’t you going to put some clothes on? Seriously, it’s not that warm out there.’ Her voice is high.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘I’m hot, hot, hot.’