‘No,’ I snap. ‘You two do whatever you want. I’m going to Vacuum.’

They look at each other again – positively a conspiratorial glance – and I see Matt giving the tiniest of nods.

‘Actually,’ he says, ‘Vacuum could be fun.’

And so we leave Hadley’s, and go to Vacuum – in a cab, of course. I’m staring out the window, watching the orange street lights against the darkening sky, wondering what the fuck that guy meant when he asked me ‘how does it feel?’ Stuart and Matt are making small talk, apparently to coax me out of my sulk.

‘Well that wasn’t exactly the party of the decade,’ says Stuart.

‘I’ve had more fun at funerals,’ says Matt, with a giggle. I don’t doubt that this is true.

‘Still,’ says Stuart, ‘it’s quite exciting in a way, to see which one gets Hadley first. The law, or the cancer.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, didn’t you know?’ Stuart and Matt exchange a pitying look. ‘The police are busting all the dealers. Hadley’s number is up. When they find out about his little business model …’

‘Which is what, exactly?’

‘Like a pizza delivery company. You get your basic piece of trade, most of it to a traditional Eastern European recipe, with or without a variety of toppings that include cocaine, Viagra, GHB.’

‘Mozzarella, anchovies, spicy sausage,’ adds Matt, still giggling.

‘And the cancer?’

‘Oh, that,’ says Stuart, as if he’s already bored of the subject. ‘Yeah, he’s dying. Everyone knows that.’

I did not know that. How could I know that? Stuart is looking at me with a little smile at the corner of his mouth, one eyebrow half raised, as if to say ‘beat that’.

‘That’s awful,’ I say, but we’ve arrived at Vacuum and now we’re fumbling for money. Before I know it, Matt has paid and the cab is driving off. He puts an arm round my shoulder, an arm round Stuart’s, and we walk into the club as if we (or at least he) own the place, which for all I know he does.

Vacuum is your basic black box with lights and music, and it’s open pretty much twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and here the concept of time is much more simple than in other clubs. In Vacuum, whatever the time and whatever the day, it’s always Friday night. There is no bar, just a very large cloakroom at which you check as many of your clothes as you possibly can. There are large ice buckets dotted around the edge of the room, containing plastic bottles of water, but rumour has it they’ve been opened and refilled with tap water, possibly spiked, so people either bring their own or go thirsty. There are drug dealers stationed at the four corners of the club, doing a brisk trade in GHB, crystal meth, cocaine and ecstasy. You are, of course, searched at the door, to make sure you’re not bringing any Class As on to the premises – but this, I presume, is to protect the domestic trade. Everyone is gurning and sweating and dancing, and the music is ear-splittingly loud.