When the door opened without warning I jumped. It was Eleanor. She stood in the doorway, hands on hips, face like thunder. My cheeks burst into flame and I grabbed my shirt and held it up against my chest. Eleanor was wearing a dressing gown in sky blue silk which grazed the floor. Her hair was in a ponytail. She had no make-up on and her skin, which shone with night cream, was criss-crossed with red capillaries and smudged greyish-yellow beneath her eyes.

‘You’re drinking?’ She looked from Edie to me and then to the bottle.

Edie snorted. ‘You’re joking, right?’

Eleanor crossed her arms. ‘Well, are you?’

‘No,’ Edie said flatly. ‘We’re not drinking.’

Eleanor looked back at the bottle of vodka between us and narrowed her eyes.

‘Did you bring that, Tamsyn?’ she said, her voice slurred.

Horror flooded me. I wanted to scream, I didn’t bring it here! I don’t drink! She made me! But instead I sat there with my mouth opening and closing in silence.

‘It’s mine.’ Edie turned away from her mother and pretended to yawn. ‘I mean, obviously it’s yours, but it was me who took it from the cupboard. Don’t worry,’ she said, reaching for the ink. ‘There’s plenty more. You won’t run out.’

Eleanor’s face hardened. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. She glared at Edie. I braced myself for her to explode and send me home, but instead she blinked twice and marched over to Edie’s chest of drawers and snapped the music off. ‘Keep the music down. If you don’t, I won’t let Tamsyn stay the night again.’

I tried to smile at her, aware that I was sitting half-naked in her house, a bottle of stolen alcohol on the bed at my feet. But she didn’t soften, just stalked out of the room and slammed the door.

Edie closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. ‘Sorry you had to see that,’ she said. ‘She’s such a nightmare.’

‘Should we go and say sorry to her? For the music?’

Edie furrowed her brow. ‘Why?’

I shrugged.

Edie leant forward and pushed the bottle towards me. When I tipped it to my lips I only pretended to drink.

‘Who’s coming to the party?’ I said, wanting to take my mind off Eleanor’s anger.

‘The party?’

‘The one I’m coming to.’

‘Oh. Just friends of my parents who are staying for the weekend.’

Edie pressed her finger against the point of the needle. Her skin compressed, the flesh whitening around the point, until finally the needle pierced her skin. She held her finger up in front of her face and squeezed with the other hand, staring at the bubble of blood that grew.

‘Do you need to sterilise it?’