He went to keep walking, but Merry’s hand – her french-tipped nails – dug into his arm.

‘No, let me down,’ she said. ‘I feel sick. I’m going to be sick!’

Swiftly he put her down and stepped away, towards the front door. Merry clutched at the architrave with both hands, her forehead pressed against it, eyes closed. She looked like she was clinging onto a sinking ship.

I’ll never be certain that I heard her say what I thought she said. What I heard was, in a mumble, ‘Who could live here?’ though it could also have been, ‘Do I live here?’ or maybe even, ‘I’m going to be sick here.’

‘What?’ I said.

Merry didn’t answer. She was sick. It rushed out, and I saw it all, scattered like runes: the wine, the turkey, the viscous brown streaks that I assumed were coffee or after-dinner mints. It piled up on the carpet. It splattered against the door, the architraves, against the hall table and onto the fresh white walls. Merry took a few deep breaths. Then she vomited again, a kind of afterbirth of vomit. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

‘I feel better,’ she announced.

‘Let me get you something for your head,’ I said. ‘Some ice.’

But when I came back with the only ice I’d been able to find – the snaplock bag full of holy water – Bruce had already walked Merry outside.

Tate and I stood in the hallway for a moment, sobered a little by the stench of vomit.

‘What do we do?’ said Tate. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘It’s everywhere.’

I sent him to bed. He took the bag of ice.

The first effort I made to clean up – my hair loose, feet tangled in my long floral dress – was less than helpful. It amounted, more or less, to taking some towels from the bathroom – the nice fluffy towels, I was drunk – and casting them gently over the scene.

It was only the next morning, with rubber gloves, a headscarf, and a bucket and scrubbing brush that I really set to work on the mess Merry had left. I made the water as hot as I could and it scalded me even through the gloves. I scrubbed the carpet, and the walls, and was amazed at how well things came up; by the time I was finished and everything had dried, the only way you would have been able to spot the stains was if you knew they were there in the first place.

The smell, though. The smell was another matter. We used everything we could think of: bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, lemon juice, odour-killing drops, tea-tree oil. We managed to expel most of it, but when you opened the front door, especially when the weather was warm, there was for years after a slight acrid smell, and the slight nausea that accompanied it.