‘I’ll make everyone tea,’ said Irene, suddenly aware of how cold she was in her grubby orange dress and her sticky, bare feet. She wanted a hot bath and a large bed and no one else near her. ‘Mickey, tea for you?’

He nodded, grimacing. The bruise that spread from his left temple and up his forehead was violently blue, as if he’d been dyed.

‘Luke? Tea?’

For the first time, he and Irene looked at each other. ‘That would be very nice,’ he replied formally.

‘I’m hungry,’ Katherine said from the cabin in her piping voice. ‘Is it breakfast?’

‘No,’ they heard Neil reply. ‘It’s the middle of the night still. Go back to sleep.’

‘How can it be night if it’s blue outside?’

‘It just can. Sleep.’

‘But I’m hungry. I want Weetabix.’

‘We don’t have Weetabix, you know that.’

‘Weetabix.’ Her voice was getting higher all the time. ‘I want Weetabix. I want Lambie.’

‘Lambie’s at home. Here’s Teddy.’

‘Don’t want Teddy. Want Lambie. Want my red chair. Want my Maisie book.’

The door was shut sharply and her voice ebbed to a far-off whine. Lorrie stretched her arms, her tee-shirt riding above her knickers and her bare tanned midriff.

‘It’s going to be a long day,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

Irene struck a match, turned the gas nozzle till it hissed, then lit the stove. She swilled out the teapot. Down the corridor they could hear the asymmetrical splatter of Luke’s shower.

‘Especially for you. You’re leaving in a few hours.’

‘Mmm. Only if everything’s OK here.’

‘Of course it will be – won’t it, Mickey?’

‘Sure,’ he said groggily, his eyelids fluttering.

Lorrie looked at him. ‘This is hopeless. Tell you what, Mickey, you can sleep for a bit and one of us will just wake you every half an hour or so. Though I don’t know that that’s any better – sounds like torture to me.’

‘I don’t need to sleep,’ he said, but his eyes were already rolling back and his mouth opening as he spoke.

‘You get back to bed,’ said Irene. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him. It was my fault anyway.’

‘Is that so?’

‘He was jealous.’

‘Of Luke?’

‘Mmm.’

‘In what crappy alternative world is that your fault?’

Irene shrugged.

‘He’s wretched, that’s what,’ said Lorrie in a half-whisper, glancing over at Mickey sprawled slackly on the sofa. ‘And drunk. And he’s been antagonistic to Luke ever since he started going out with Mary, and then even more when he stopped.’

The kettle started a stuttering whistle; Irene lifted it off and poured boiling water over the tea bags. Behind them, she could hear Katherine saying: ‘I want Lambie now. I want my Teletubbies video. I want Weetabix. I want my yellow nightie with the flower on front …’