She picked the box up and put it down over the sink so that he couldn’t see her knickers floating in the grey water.

‘It’s cold, too,’ she added, ‘but it won’t take a minute to get the heater going. It warms up dead quick.’

She flicked a switch and the fan whirred into life. When she turned round Ray was hovering by the sofa bench.

‘Sit down, then,’ she said. ‘Do you want a coffee or something? Tea?’

‘Tea would be great. So this is where you hang out. I like it.’ He ran an approving eye around the various areas of the room and nodded as he spoke.

Paltry though it was, Melissa enjoyed his compliment. Praise had always been a bit thin on the ground in her world, though, so she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react. Feeling the heat rising in her cheeks, she turned her back on him to fill the kettle, whilst trying to avoid revealing the soggy knickers.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s only small but it does me, and the views are amazing.’ She lifted the thin curtain to prove her point, but outside the sky was entirely black with not even the rest of the site visible, let alone the view. ‘When it’s light, I mean,’ she added.

She felt foolish now. Was that something he was doing merely by being in her space? When they were in the pub or even the café, she felt on a level pegging with him, despite his clear social superiority. She knew the rules there, and she knew how to bend them to get what she wanted. But this was different. Here she felt like a little girl, not vulnerable exactly but somehow inferior.

‘So, where do you live, then?’ she asked. She clipped her words short in an attempt to show that there was nothing soft or gentle about her, but it made her sound more aggressive than she’d intended. That was no good. She didn’t want to give him the impression that she wasn’t interested.

There was a brief pause as his eyes took in an empty tampon box on the floor by the bathroom door. Shit. She stared at him, defying him to pass comment on her messiness, but he just shifted his gaze to her.

‘The other side of Newcastle,’ he said vaguely.

Melissa wanted to know everything about him but she really didn’t want to scare him off by appearing too nosey. No doubt she’d get more details in time.

The kettle came to a boil and she made two mugs of tea and set them down on the table in front of him. The tea steamed in the chilly air.

‘How come you work in Newcastle?’ he asked. ‘It’s a bit of a trek and I assume you could get a barmaid’s job here, or do they not have any pubs in Whitley Bay?’