Life was pretty boring without drink and drugs. Life with drink and drugs was pretty boring, too. Sometimes, in the days of working out how to get a drink then drinking then needing more drink, they’d say to each other, ‘I wish something bad would happen,’ because sometimes drinking felt like a rat-wheel. Getting more drink, the day spread out ahead of them like the plains on the way to the treatment centre up north. One day, they’d been trying to work out how to get to the warehouse in the rain and how to stop the rain coming in the hole in the bathroom window and Peggy had said, ‘So many problems to deal with.’

‘With drink, all your problems just become one problem,’ Greta said.

‘Getting more drink,’ Peggy said.

‘Getting more drink.’

A woman who had been sober for five years said, ‘Alcoholics love drama.’ It had made them angry. It was after a meeting, and Greta had been telling a group of people about Heidi and the situation at home and the others had been listening, nodding and saying, ‘That’s tough,’ and then the woman had said that. She followed it up by saying, ‘Drama. Drama. Drama.’ Like a song, and then, ‘Am I right?’ and a few people agreed. Nodded their heads and laughed. ‘She could be dead,’ Peggy said. The woman shrugged. ‘Not your business.’ Then she left to get another cup of coffee.

They couldn’t tell if anything was different in the room. They’d made it look different now, though. The clothes were on the bed and folded – badly – and the papers were on top of each other in a pile. It felt sort of like a cunning trap. If Heidi came home again and saw they’d moved things she’d want to know why. She might leave a note, Don’t touch my stuff or something like that, and then they’d at least know she was alive and able to write.

It was a bit of a useless cunning plan, but it felt like something.

‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ Dell said, running her hand through her hair. All their hair looked so bad.

‘Yeah,’ Greta and Peggy said. ‘Yeah.’ And they left the room, closing the door behind them.

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