As I drank, I picked up the sewing kit and read the writing on it. The Astoria Hotel, New York. I drew the tips of my fingers over the threads, marvelling at how much further they had travelled than me and yet still they’d ended up here.

Edie scooped up a bag from the floor beside her bed and fished around inside it. She took out a pencil case on which words and shapes were doodled in blue and black biro: her name written multiple times in spiky writing, hearts, skulls, CND signs and a few band names I recognised. She unzipped it and took out a bottle of ink. I stared at the black liquid which could have been drawn from the dark pool beneath her bedroom window.

‘Indian ink is the only type you can use,’ she said, shaking the bottle vigorously.

‘Why?’ I asked as I lifted the vodka to my mouth and swallowed.

She shrugged. ‘No idea. Maybe the other stuff is poisonous.’

She walked over to a small red and black radio cassette player on top of the chest and pressed a button. There was a loud click then music.

‘A bit of Depeche Mode,’ she said. ‘Perfect to get us in the mood.’

A haunting dirge of voices filled the room followed by an echoing noise like a knife tapping on a milk bottle. She walked over to me and reached between my legs for the bottle of vodka. She took the lid off and threw it aside. It skimmed across the floor and bounced against the wall. She smiled as she drank. When she lowered the bottle from her mouth I saw her chin shone with vodka and it crossed my mind to lick it off.

‘Martin Gore is a total God,’ Edie said over the noise, closing her eyes and tipping the bottle to her lips again. The song filled the room and she swayed in time. ‘It’s called “Black Celebration”,’ she said. ‘It’s the track Jay likes.’

The music vibrated through my body. Edie threw her arms in the air and waved them as she turned around and around, eyes still closed, head nodding in time with the beat. She was mesmerising. Every part of me wanted to stand and dance too, but I was shackled by self-consciousness and unable to move. Her hips rotated as she circled, neck tipped back, mouth half-opened. Then without warning her face changed. She became pale and peppered with sand. Bits of seaweed stuck to her blueish lips and water flooded her mouth and throat and soaked her lungs like the boy on the beach. I closed my eyes and dug my fingernails into my palms to force the lie away. Edie wasn’t drowned. She was alive and dancing for me.