She didn’t move for several minutes. Mainly because she couldn’t.

Because this morning’s hangover was a Humdinger.

What was it that singled out a Humdinger from any other common or garden hangover? Well, for starters it wasn’t enough merely to suffer the nausea and the pounding head and the dry tongue and the acid reflux; not enough to suffer the discomfort of the previous evening’s crusty make-up left unremoved by facial wipes and smeared instead upon the pillowcase or languishing in the corners of her eyes. Nor was it enough to discover her knickers – hurled across the room with such confidence a mere five hours earlier – now dangling limply from a magazine rack. No. To qualify as a Humdinger of a hangover, there had to be an accompanying sense of dread and crippling shame; to qualify for Humdinger status, one had to wake up fearful of what might have happened during the previous evening’s blackout, vainly hoping that at the very least it wasn’t something illegal.

There had been several Humdingers over the years that had seen Lana wake up confused as to why she was clutching property that was clearly not hers, but which she’d evidently purloined during the previous evening’s events: a gents’ Rolex one time, a set of car keys another, a squash racquet and a Wedgwood vase … the list went on. And then there were the more bizarre items – including a cheese grater, a staple gun and a deerstalker hat. It would be too embarrassing to return all these objects – even if she could remember who owned them – so technically they were stolen. Technically she was a thief! But she justified her actions by citing the Rules of Blackout: what you weren’t conscious of, you couldn’t be guilty of. What happened in Blackout stayed in Blackout. She knew this theory didn’t make logical sense, but it was the only way she could live with the guilt of her crimes. That and donating all her stashes to charity shops, of course. Yes, even the Rolex.

But thieving wasn’t the only potential downside of a booze-fuelled night. There’d been the countless mornings when she’d woken up in alien places – a garden shed, a horse box, even a builder’s skip. And times when she’d lost her shoes, her keys or her pants. She’d once woken up wearing someone else’s pants – a pair of men’s Y-fronts to be exact. And on another occasion she’d come to, sitting bolt upright in an Eisteddfod Bard’s Chair clothed in nothing more than a grey plastic mac. Though to be fair, at least it was buttoned up.

And then there were the relationship-wrecking risks she took with drunken texts, or drunken phone calls or emails. Or the dignity-endangering drunken tweets. She couldn’t remember contacting anyone last night or going online, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t. It always took her a few hours into the Humdinger before she could summon the courage to look at her phone. She needed to be strong to learn who exactly she’d offended and how. So many times she’d received an early-morning text saying, ‘Never contact me again – you are appalling.’ Or ‘Hey sexy! You were soooo horny last night …!’ But there had also been several mornings in her life when Catrin had rung to check she was still alive, because ‘You were in a bad way, Larn. I thought you were gonna, y’know, do something stupid. You were weeping, saying you were lonely, saying your life was meaningless!’