I should never have had my hair cut, never have clipped my nails, have eaten what I liked, got up late, slopped and slooped about in my mash, were it not that I had a body servant, who though only a serving Iremonger, and so not to be particularly thought about, came once a week and aired me out. Then I must make sure all was very well hidden, for he searched so well and was a terrible nose. I was steamed in that laundry day, I was scrubbed and snipped and rubbed and boiled and dipped in smells, my hair was bullied into obeisance and I was made white again and blank until the next week by which time I would have scribbled all over myself, creased me and blurred me and filthied myself in exactly the way I liked. Anything that I had not hidden well would not be there, nor would the body Iremonger mention it, he would just take it; it would go for ever and for ever. Sometimes to have a feeling of even greater independence and total me-ness, I might light a clay pipe or even puff on a cigarillo if I had found one, or then if not have rolled myself a quick cigarette of clippings and dried dust mites, only then should the body Iremonger remind me that such things were not permissible and then Briggs would come to me and, begging my pardon, should pinch my ear quite hard or rap my knuckles, then I should have to say twelve Hallo Moorries (Moorrie was a very good Iremonger who was a wonder at sifting and found many lost treasures, before perishing in a methane explosion, lighting up a fat cigar out on the heaps. NOT A BEANY (which is how Tummis and I say ‘nota bene’): NO SMOKING ON THE WASTEGROUND. HIGHLY FORBIDDEN.) But otherwise I was mostly left alone to my own stink.

That night, when the night bell was sounded, when all was quiet along the corridor – except for the noise from Cyril Pennington, a fire bucket, which was perpetual – I headed out in search of Victoria Hollest.