She pours whisky into two of the tumblers and brings one to me. “Here. This will put hair on your chest.”

“That should repel any would-be rapists.” A strange noise rumbles in my chest and breaks out of my mouth. A kind of belch. It sounds like amusement.

“There you go. Even the prospect of alcohol has cheered you up.”

“I haven’t had a drink in more than a year. It wasn’t thought to be wise.”

Moira tips a small measure of the amber fluid down her throat and smiles. “Wise shmise.”

I lift the tumbler and feel the familiar heft of having a drink in my hand. I twirl it in my fingers to watch the light strike the whisky and catch fire. I hold it to my nose and inhale. The fumes make me recoil. I try again, more carefully this time. Petrol. Iodine. Plastic. For a moment, I wish I had a proper glass to drink this out of. I could ask Moira to go and fetch one for me from her house. She would probably do it. But now that the whisky is in my hand, I want to drink it. I don’t want to wait.

I take a small sip. Too small. It evaporates on my tongue before I can swallow it. I take a bigger one that burns a fiery trail down my gullet, causing long shudders to wrack my body.

“You really are a lightweight, aren’t you?” says Moira, watching this performance. “I didn’t believe you when you said you hadn’t had a drink in a year, but now I do.”

I take another sip and my insides turn to gold. Lovely, lovely molten gold that warms my fingertips and heats my belly. Suddenly the blanket on my lap seems oppressive, so I toss it aside and pull my legs up to sit cross-legged on the chair.

“We need to get you back on the horse.”

I try to make sense of this. “What horse?”

“The sex horse.”

“There’s a sex horse? Why did no one tell me?” I laugh again, and this time it sounds more natural and less like a long-suppressed eructation.

“The sex horse says you haven’t had a ride in a very long time.”

“The sex horse is right.”

“Don’t you ever get horny, Lucy?”

I drain my glass as I ponder this conundrum. Then I hold it out to Moira and she refills it from the bottle. Do I? I wonder. Do I ever get horny?