When they got back from treatment the counsellor had given them the form to take to Social Welfare to say they needed to concentrate on staying sober. The person looked at their file and the arrests and the trouble, and agreed. They’d never been on a benefit before. They’d always worked – usually illegally but it was so much easier than dealing with Social Welfare. They’d been lucky. Even though they were very drunk, most of the work they did could be done drunk. ‘Lying on your back,’ they laughed. They looked up the number for Workbridge in the phonebook and now they had an appointment in five weeks. Erin and Kitty said that one of the other women was doing a graphic design course. Which was sort of like art, they all agreed. They were going to ask the Workbridge people about that. That’s what they’d been telling everyone. The art on Diane’s wall was what made them want to be artists. They wanted a house like this. They wanted to know artists. This made them feel good. From Diane’s sink, you could look out on a lawn. Or back at yourself if it was night time.

They’d had cake. They’d sung happy birthday. People were laughing. Peggy and Greta wondered if it was a show. They’d hung out with straight-edge punks for a while. Drinking in toilets and closets and pretending they hadn’t been. ‘Can anyone else smell booze?’ ‘Nope.’ The music was great but the straight-edge punks were the worst. The direct action – one night they’d superglued the McDonald’s doors shut, and the good-looking guy they hung around the straight-edge punks to be around was arrested for throwing a brick through a butcher’s window. There was a rumour that a drummer from one of the bands worked in a freezing works but that was probably bullshit. What made the straight-edge punks the worst was they were constantly trying to prove they didn’t need drugs to have fun. Instead, they did all sorts of exhausting fun activities.