I’m disappointed, angry, frustrated. I should take a photo of her on her mobile phone and paste it up on Facebook – that might make her think just how she looks. What is wrong with young girls these days? Why do they behave like this? Why do they think this is what having fun means?

As I’m unlikely to get any sense out of Ellen, I turn on my son. ‘I thought you were supposed to be looking after her?’

‘I’m not her keeper,’ Bobby whines. ‘You know what she’s like.’

Only too well.

‘I saw her going outside. Her mates said she was getting some fresh air.’ My son avoids my eyes. ‘When I got out, there was some bloke pawing her. I shouted at him to leave her alone. When he saw me, he lifted her handbag and legged it. I chased after him, but I’ve had a few too.’

That’s also rather obvious.

‘I managed to land a punch on him, but he pulled me over and I fell on my hand,’ Bobby continues. ‘I didn’t get the bag back. Don’t know whether it was lumping the bloke or the fall that did it, but my hand is killing me now.’

‘You’re lucky that the police didn’t get involved.’

‘They’re not bothered,’ he says with a quick glance at the police van. ‘Turn a blind eye to anything that goes on up here. They just want a quiet night.’

‘It’s a shame that the pair of you don’t.’

Greg’s found some old towels in the boot of my car that I keep for wiping muddy shoes and he’s mopping up the aftermath of my daughter’s drinking binge. When he’s made the best job of it that he can, he slips back into the driver’s seat and looks at me in the rearview mirror. ‘Hospital?’

‘Where else?’ I reply tightly but, in fairness, my temper isn’t directed at my husband.

He eases the car away from the pavement, dodging broken glass in the road. A kid staggers across the street, bare chested. ‘It feels like the flipping Wild West up here.’

And I wonder what’s happened to our society that this is considered a good night out.

‘I just want to go home,’ Ellen wails, suddenly coming round.

‘Well, instead, you’re going to be spending the rest of the night in A and E with your brother.’

‘Get a life, Mum,’ Ellen mutters under her breath, but just about loud enough for me to hear.

Well, I won’t swallow it this time and I round on her, snapping, ‘Has it ever occurred to you that it’s you two who need to get a life?’

Then we all fall into a tense silence and stay like that until we get to the hospital.

Chapter 94

Chapter 94