He patted my shoulder over-demonstratively and jumped up, hovering in front of me. ‘Do you actually want one? If I say I’m getting it for you, he’ll let me have it.’

I could see Becca lurking, giving me death stares. I fingered the small bottle of ouzo in my pocket. ‘Have it. Have it on me.’

‘You’re magic, Polly.’

Someone had opened their car doors and was playing rockabilly – yowling male voices, guitars sounding like they had been recorded in a tin bath. Lottie and Bev were dancing, hands slicing the air. The strobing light on people’s bodies was the colour of the lobster from the loch.

A shudder from the bonfire and a million tiny flecks, bright orange pencil-flicks, hit the sky to a collective sigh. There was a constant patter of clapping and stamping from its centre, the fire demanding its own encore.

Lottie was talking to Johnny, who leant benignly towards her, his hands folded behind his back. I trailed over, my ankle twisting as I misjudged a mound of grass.

One glance at my shoulders and back and his mouth fell open. ‘Right. Well.’ He turned abruptly and moved away with the preciseness of a soldier’s drill.

Lottie looked at me, puzzled.

Everyone hated me.

I began to see the torched skeleton of the fire. Black spines and fingers, houses. The frames of hospital beds.

Dark scratches, frown lines and eyebrows.

‘Nice wings.’ Fraser was standing behind me watching the bonfire, arms folded.

Becca stood next to him, flexing her fingers repeatedly.

‘Where’s your man, then?’ he said. The fire made his face pale red, as if someone had just drawn a knife over his hairline, his blood washing down.

‘He’s not my man.’

‘You got bored of him too?’

I began to walk away. ‘Fuck off, Fraser.’

Becca stepped in front of me. ‘Don’t talk to him like that.’ Her voice was like a fairy demon who had just drunk poison.

I stopped. ‘Oh what, she actually speaks? Doesn’t just howl at the moon or bleat through a fucking tin whistle? I mean, who the hell plays that anyway? It’s like the aborted foetus of a primary school recorder.’ I was faintly aware that Lottie was standing a few metres away.

Becca bared her teeth at me. She was wearing glow-in-the-dark fangs.

‘You’re fucking mental,’ Fraser said.

‘She. Wants. To. Bang. You. Have her. She’ll probably stick two fingers down her throat afterwards but she’ll give it a good go first.’

Becca lunged at me, her hands outstretched. I grabbed one wrist and slapped her cheek.

It might as well have been a bolt of lightning. Her pointed chin dropped, before she shut her eyes and shrieked. ‘Stay away from him! Stay away from Finn! Stay away!’

I lurched back towards the fire, a satisfying burn on my palm, the alcohol puddling between my ears. People around us had hushed and Fraser’s muttering came through, conciliatory and filled with disgust. The words ‘Bitch’ and ‘Crazy.’