Rocky muttered something. Using a filthy tea towel, he picked up the kettle from the fire and set it down on the table, gently hooting and shaking his palm out. ‘Naw, it’s fine, I’m just jeebin’ you.’ He took a mug from the cupboard and slipped his fingers into an inside pocket of his jacket, his voice calm and easy again. ‘You just don’t have proper basslines, harmonies, I don’t know, it’s like all the stomach’s been taken out of it.’ He carefully opened out a crushed square of tin foil and held up a tea bag by its edge. ‘It’s what tribes in Africa drink. Cracking stuff. Good for your insides.’

That accent. Like the words had been knocked about with a spade on the way out.

We stayed in our positions, looking at the fire or the floor. Fraser in the middle of the room, standing. Me sitting on the bed with the sleeping bag over my legs. Becca as close to the end of the bench as she could be without falling off. A tune with aerosol-can sound effects was rattling tinnily and slightly too loudly, the cartoonish rapping beginning to sound idiotic. The party had died on its arse. A popped balloon, limp plastic going everywhere.

Rocky slurped his tea and sat back. ‘What are yous lot on, then?’

Fraser made a bad attempt at looking completely blank. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Come on, you’re not just on the bevvies.’ He looked round at us all. ‘You’re blazing away, especially this one.’ He leant over to pinch Becca on the arm and she flinched, darting out of his reach.

Fraser knelt down in front of the fire. Rocky fixed his eyes on me and I stared back. There was a small dark patch, a bruise or a birthmark or something, on one of his cheekbones. How the hell were we going to spend the entire night with him here? It was just embarrassing.

He suddenly spoke more loudly to the corner. ‘All right, pal?’

Finn had woken up and was just beginning to uncrumple himself from the chair, rubbing his eye with a knuckle. He looked at Rocky, confused, his cheeks bright red. ‘Hello.’ He looked at his sister, and at me, and at Fraser.

‘Pills, then? Got any cheeba on you? You can’t leave me all sober on my own. Come on.’ His own and on sounded the same and were both dragged out, as if he was talking to a bunch of toddlers.

‘Peps,’ said Fraser quite quietly, his head only half turned, pissed off.

‘Nice, nice,’ Rocky nodded. There was a pause. Fraser didn’t move. He didn’t have any left. And I sure as hell wasn’t giving my weed up.

‘You can have mine,’ Finn said, getting up and reaching into the pocket of his jeans. He looked at me guiltily. ‘I didn’t have it yet.’

‘Very generous, pal, very generous.’ Rocky took the pill from him and held it up to the fire. ‘Haven’t seen one of these in a bit of time. These spare ones, then, Fraser?’