The house is packed with people, lots of men lounging on chairs in tracksuits, and ridiculously glamorous women in tight dresses and high heels, faces Botoxed and made up like drag queens.

Carrie turns to me and raises her eyebrows, and I’m glad that we’re still bonded over this. We are not like these women.

The women are drinking champagne, or vodka shots. Sergei disappears into the crowd, but we keep walking, looking for a place to sit, or even just a place to stand. I feel overwhelmed, all of a sudden. Despite the things we’ve done already on this trip – the people we’ve met – the situations we’ve been in, when it comes to something like this, I clam up and I need guidance, or else I have the urge to flee back to safety, where I don’t have to try to fit in. Luckily, Carrie steps up to the challenge. She grabs my hand and drags me through gyrating bodies.

She turns to me, grinning. ‘Thank fuck you made us come out,’ she shouts. I can barely hear her above the din. She jostles us past various party-goers, some dancing, some huddled in groups, shouting into each other’s ears. A thin girl with long dark hair almost as long as her buttock-skimming dress is gyrating against a fat man in a grey tracksuit, who looks old enough to be her dad.

Eventually, we find the kitchen, where people are huddled around worktops littered with bottles and cans. A couple of people are in a corner, squashed close together, leaning down, heads together. The woman lifts her head and turns to me, wiping her nose. She glares at us, then the man lifts his head, and she looks at him and tips her head back and laughs. They move apart just enough for me to see the granite chopping board in the space behind them, two silver straws sitting there next to a credit card and their one remaining line.

‘Here.’ I spin around at the sound of Carrie’s voice, and she holds out a champagne glass, filled with pale liquid – bubbles still fizzing up to the top. ‘Cheers,’ she says, and downs her drink. Then she picks up the bottle from where she’s left it nearby, and tops up her glass. Downs it again.

‘Steady,’ I say. ‘We’ve only just got here.’

She laughs, and gestures around the room, using the bottle as a pointer. ‘We’ve got a bit of catching up to do.’

I finish my drink, and I’m about to say something else, when I feel strong arms grabbing me around my waist. I try to squirm free, but I’m trapped.

‘Hey there,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘It’s Lev. Remember?’

He releases his grip and I wriggle free, turning to face him. ‘Hi.’