Irene tried to protest (‘Och no, I don’t mind, son’), but Neil had a feeling that Danny Mansfield always got his own way.

‘Shall we head up to the Argylle Bar, Clio? And anyone who wants to can join us – provided they’re old enough, of course.’

Neil lay in the top bunk, under his sheet sleeping bag and big Donald’s long wool coat, with a bladder over-full of beer and no idea what to do about it. It had taken him a suitcase balanced on a table and a leg-up from a swaying, friendly Lee to get into the bed in the first place, as there were no ladders provided in this bunkhouse, apparently, and the bunks were not designed for short people. There were actually two bottom bunks free, but one had everyone’s luggage heaped on it, and the other one, he was told, was Danny’s. Well, he’d been in bed for almost three hours now, marking the passage of time by Donald’s gentle snoring and Lee’s occasional whimpers, and Danny had not decided to make use of his bunk yet.

Fuck it. He would go to the toilet, take that bottom bunk on his return, and if Danny came in he could get himself up into Neil’s bed somehow. He cantilevered himself off the side, his feet scrabbling air for the safety of the bunk below. For one horrendous second he thought he was going to fall, but then his toe caught the mattress, the strap of a rucksack.

The floor in the corridor was freezing, but it was too dark in the room to look for socks. He hadn’t thought to bring pyjamas, either, so faced the long walk in his T-shirt and pants, hoping it was late enough that no one would see. He passed Clio’s door, number 28. She was the only person on the tour to get a room to herself, it seemed. Tiny sounds from back there: a woman whispering, a man laughing, a soft moan.

Well, what were you expecting, he thought to himself, breathing in cheap, sharp disinfectant that didn’t mask the smell of someone else’s shit, as he clenched his bare feet in front of the urinal. You knew what she wanted you here for, and it wasn’t ever going to be that. She’s a beautiful woman. Beautiful women take lovers. He’d just never worked out why the lovers they took had to be such total arseholes.