There were dancers, in various stages of electrocution, who jerked knees and elbows on the lightning floor as the disco ball above their heads conferred a swirling galaxy, the strobe turning dandruff into luminescent stars and cheap white suits fluorescent with radiation.

Each new detonation from the stacked boom boxes in the four corners of the disco was the Big Bang of the universe, as James Brown’s ‘Sex Machine’ sent the Friday-nighters into renewed paroxysms. Neon-pink talons and conveyor-belt diamonds waved in the smoky air. Gold-sovereign’d fists punched out at the inter-stellar chaos that poured through them, over them and under them.

Stanley: I’d been hijacked after work and frog-marched by the guys to this bunker called Mingles, where I squinted in the searchlight of a crazed strobe, my laced-up brogues stamped on by feet hopping to detonating beats that ricocheted around the fragile, membranous chamber encasing the one solid asset I was purported to own: my brain.

Behind the bar Jessie O’Donnell groaned inwardly as more tipsy revellers in fake Miami tans tumbled down the stairs in black satin pants and white stilettos, shutting out the flashing carousels, screeching dodgems and general helter-skelter of Piccadilly’s midnight circus outside.

This is what I’ve come to, she nagged away at herself, pulling, squirting, plunging and pouring various types of alcohol into various shapes of glass. This is the fag end of a career treading the boards. An entertainer, an artiste, even, some would say, a diva.

What was she now? A barmaid. At her age.

Stanley: I slunked against the wall, my damp fingers slid into the grooves of a pint-sized mug, sipped beer at tepid intervals, felt the gradual lightness in my head and that heavy sinking feeling in my belly, as people poured in from the street – like vomit – and the music vibrated on my sternum, making me feel sick and HATE-HAVING-TO-SHOUT-TO-SPEAK.

Jessie longed to see nothing but long, empty roads in front of her. To take four wheels, a credit card and the hitherto elusive compañero.

But there were more sparkling white wines to serve, more Babychams, Bacardis, beery breaths and Bloody Marys. More – ‘ere, got any chips? No! Tapas? No! Twiglets? No! You’re a big girl, aren’t you? Bugger off or I’ll call Security!

Stanley: My body is a stubborn bastard, it won’t do those strange, rhythmical manoeuvres fuelled by the human need for exhibitionism and abandonment, and even if it did the whole dance floor would crease up and covertly imitate, just like my first and last disco for the Tower Hamlets Under Sixteens (prompting premature retirement from this particular form of brain–body coordination).

Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ hit the decks. The ultimate crowd pleaser, it was still the personal anthem for those who’d been dumped and wanted revenge, and those who planned on doing the dumping.