She snorts. ‘Of course. In Europe, though, not in Asia. I once smuggled a lump of hash from Amsterdam to Paris in a sock. I was terrified the whole time. When the guards came on. I nearly peed my pants. But they didn’t even look at me. I guess I don’t look like an international drugs mule.’ She laughs, takes a sip of Coke. ‘In fact, that means I might make a good one … Maybe I’ll look into it.’ She winks.

Perhaps I’ve made a big mistake. I don’t even know her. She found me at my most vulnerable, and she helped me. I appreciate it. We had fun. We can have more fun, if she lets me stick around.

‘I was just thinking about dinner last night,’ she says, as if she has just read my mind. ‘As predicted, it was totally cheesy and we could have been anywhere, but I kind of liked how excited that group of students were to see us. So random that they wanted to take so many photos of us.’

‘They think we’re exotic,’ I say. ‘With our pale skin and wide eyes. Our height too. We’re like goddesses to them. They’ve no idea that they’re the beautiful, exotic ones.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ she says. She licks her top lip with the tip of her tongue.

I feel something stir inside me. She is exotic, more so than me. Her skin is smooth and lightly tanned. Her blonde highlighted hair is naturally straight and shiny. She wears neatly fitting shorts and vest tops. She smells of lemons. I, on the other hand, seem to be clad in rags beside her. My long gypsy skirt and faded Nirvana T-shirt don’t really show me off like her clothes do, my henna’d hair is in need of some TLC; it’s been so long since I brushed it, it’s turning into dreadlocks. I’m always pale, avoiding the sun. I smell of rose and jasmine, a blend of oils that I’ve been wearing since I was thirteen years old when I first mixed them together in an atomiser that my grandmother left me when she died. We are very different, and yet here we are.

She offered me the second bed in her cabin. She let this happen.