‘I know, but let me wallow for a bit, Bea. Zeta isn’t coming to collect me for ages yet.’ My older sister Zeta was driving down from teaching a workshop in Bristol in her battered old Mini, so she would be late. She always was – she was notorious for it. It wasn’t that she was scatty, just that she was an intensely dedicated charity volunteer, and if someone needed her for something, she would be there for them. She never felt as if she could say no, even if it meant saying no to her own family sometimes. I was glad my big sis was going to come and get me and help with my bags, but it wasn’t exactly her priority.

‘C’mon. Have a shower. I’ll take that big suitcase downstairs for you,’ Bea said, as she rolled up her sleeves.

‘Don’t take it down yet,’ I said, tears glistening in my eyes.

‘Ol. Look. It’s OK. I’m sad too. We all are. But c’mon, you need to get showered.’

I suddenly had a flashback to the previous night. The barman had given us all endless free shots because he fancied Cecily, Bea had ended up doing the worm on the dance floor, and Isla had stolen someone’s sombrero.

‘How are you not hungover?’ I heard a moan from outside the door, directed at Bea. ‘Are you an alien?’ Cec had appeared in a T-shirt and a lace thong, sucking on a straw in a water bottle. Her blonde bob was still magically intact. Her long legs had streaks of fake tan left on them.

‘I am hungover. But you know me, I can’t lie in,’ replied Bea, shrugging.

Cec took a running jump and landed on my bed. On top of me. Her naked bum cheek touching my leg.

‘Bea, you’re so odd,’ Cec said, and threw Henry, my cuddly toy, at her. It ricocheted off her chest and squeaked. ‘God, I feel rough.’ She snuggled in under my armpit, laughing and then said: ‘Olive you reek!’

‘Make room for me,’ Isla croaked at the door, her dark blunt fringe flopping over her eyes, and her glasses wonky on her freckled face. ‘Guys, I have the fear. Seriously, did I say or do anything weird last night?’ She walked across the room, kicked off her slippers and curled up underneath the duvet with us, spooning Cecily. Isla always gets ‘the fear’, ever since our sixth-form days when she got hammered at our leavers’ do on Bacardi Breezers and asked our only male teacher (poor Mr Simmons) ‘to dance’, as if she was a character in a Jane Austen novel.

‘While you’re there, Bea, can you take my suitcase down too?’ Cec said, pushing her luck.

‘Piss off. I’m not your mum,’ Bea laughed, rolling her eyes.

‘I don’t remember much from last night, you know. We really went for it, didn’t we?’ said Isla. ‘I do have a faint memory of us breaking into that park on the way home.’ Oh my god, she was right, we had scaled the walls, and it was all Cec’s fault. Her and her wild ideas.