So began my morning’s ‘work’, though of course I took no physical part in this activity. At the end of each week our productivity was measured by the number of carrier bags which had been strung, and Quinn, with some amusement, stuck a small brown envelope with coins in the bottom into my hand where it remained until I was returned to the wards where the Head Nurse took it from me for depositing in some kind of account I was meant to have. Each week, every day of each week, was just the same, though the weekends were free.

That morning, as he did every morning, one of the men stringing the carrier bags began to grumble about the wispy, obsessional woman collecting them up. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘doesn’t she wait until we’ve done a few? That way she could take them all at once and save herself work.’ The woman lifted the latest carrier bag from near his elbow. The man snatched it back. ‘Wait, damn you, why don’t you wait?’ She tussled silently with him, her wide eyes pleading for the carrier bag she was stretching for. Grudgingly he relented and she shuffled off to the pile with her prize. ‘See Peter,’ the old woman said to me, ‘see how they behave. They got no respect for each other, no manners, not like you and me.’

I wondered where Tanya was. In Quinn’s office, no doubt, where he would be making her giggle with weird stories, might even at that moment be passing a fingertip over her hare-lip, smiling at its contours, saying, ‘I know someone who might be able to fix that for you. At a price.’

Once, one evening when they had forgotten to take me back to the ward, Quinn came up to me in the workshop, two excitable young patients at his side. He began thumbing through a magazine he had with him which was full of photographs of naked women and men. ‘Let’s see,’ he said, ‘Let’s see.’ When he found what he was looking for, he held the magazine open inches in front of my eyes. ‘Maybe this’ll shift him,’ he said, ‘snap him out of whatever’s supposed to be the matter with him. Come on stone-brain, look at that. How about that for a nice juicy cunt? Bet you’ve never seen one like that before, eh? No sir, bet you’ve never even seen one at all. What do you think boys?’

His two companions giggled nervously, obligingly. Then Quinn became more serious, tossing the magazine aside and pushing his leathery face right up to mine. ‘What makes you think you’re so special?’ he hissed. Then he smiled again, a hard, empty smile, as he reached down and pulled open the top of my trousers. ‘Any life down here I wonder?’ he said, guffawing, reaching for my prick. ‘Anything stirring down there, Peter m’boy?’