Josephine nodded sympathetically.

‘I knew she laughed at the gear myself and my mates wore, and no real problem there. We were used to it. But then she started ignoring me in public, like, pretending she wasn’t with me. And that wasn’t funny, no way.’

I looked at his open, honest expression and for a second, as I had with Brigit, I felt compassion for him. Poor Luke, I thought, to be treated like that. Then I remembered I was the one who’d been mean to him, and that actually, I hadn’t been mean at all. The big whinger.

‘The first time Rachel ignored me,’ he continued, ‘I thought “OK, she’s a bit absent-minded, could happen to anyone.” But after a while I had to face it. It was definitely deliberate. Definitely, man! When she met up with any of those dudes who worked in those designer clothes shops, she went all weird on me, left me standing on my own like a thick. Once she left a party without saying goodbye to me. A party I’d taken her to, but she met those stupid bitches – sorry! – Helenka and Jessica there and they invited her back to their apartment.’

‘So how did you feel?’ Josephine asked.

‘Lousy,’ Luke said huskily. ‘I felt lousy. She was ashamed of me. I was disposable, a throw-away person, you know? It was the pits.’

For a moment I felt wretched. Then I looked at him scornfully, and thought, Grow up. I’m the one who should be feeling sorry for herself, not you.

To my surprise, Josephine said baldly to Luke ‘Did you love Rachel?’ My guts clenched.

He didn’t reply. Just sat very still, looking at the floor.

There was a long, tense unbearable pause. I held my breath. Did he love me?

I desperately wanted him to. He sat up and ran his hands through his long hair. I tensed for his answer and he took a breath before he spoke.

‘No,’ he said. And a part deep within me withered and died.

I shut my eyes from the pain.

It’s not true, I forcefully reminded myself. He was mad about you, still is.

‘No,’ he said again.

All right, I thought, we heard you the first time, you don’t have to rub it in.

‘If she was the nice Rachel, the one who wasn’t always off her face and smarming over those fashion assholes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘then I would have loved her, no problem. No better woman.

‘But that wasn’t the case,’ he added, ‘and it’s too late now.’

I stared at him. I could feel grief stamped on my face. He wouldn’t look at me.

Josephine paused and looked at Luke. ‘Coming here and doing what you’ve done today, it must have been very painful for you?’

‘Yeah,’ he mumbled. ‘I am very…’ he paused for a long time, ‘sad.’

The word resonated in the air.

My mouth and throat felt full of something. Below my chest, I had a burning feeling, but my skin was goose-pimpled and cold.

Josephine announced the end of the session. Brigit turned and left without looking at me. Before Luke left he held my eyes for a very long time. I tried to read something in his. Contrition? Shame?

But there was nothing.

As the door closed behind them, the other inmates stampeded to my side, to comfort and protect me. I recognized the way they looked at me – a mixture of pity and curiosity – because I’d used it on them often enough after their ISOs had come acalling. And I couldn’t bear it.

54

My half-packed bag, lying on the floor, reproached me. Mocking me for how close I thought I’d been to leaving.

I’d thought I’d be able to race out the door as soon as the clock pinged my three weeks. But Luke and Brigit’s visit put paid to that. On Wednesday evening, they had barely left the premises, when I was summoned to Dr Billings’s office.

Tall and peculiar, he greeted me with an appalling attempt at a smile and I sensed the news he was about to deliver wasn’t good.

‘After what we’ve heard about you today in group, I hope you weren’t thinking of leaving on Friday,’ he said.

‘Of course not,’ I forced myself to say. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

‘Good.’ He bared his teeth. ‘I’m glad we didn’t have to get an injunction to make you stay.

‘Which we would have done,’ he added.

Somehow, I believed him.

‘It’s for your good,’ he advised.

I managed to contain my fury by fantasizing about splitting his skull with an axe.

At least, I consoled myself on my way out of Billings’s office, while I was stuck there, I could set the record straight with the other inmates. It did my head in, as I wondered what they all thought of me in the wake of Luke’s and Brigit’s revelations.

I felt worst of all around Chris. Even though he wasn’t in my group, there were very few secrets at the Cloisters. When I’d staggered back to the dining-room after group, he was over like a shot. ‘I heard you were given the this-is-your-life treatment today,’ he grinned.

I usually blossomed like a flower in the sun when I was with him, but this time I wanted to run away. I was deeply ashamed. But when I tried to tell him that it was all lies he’d heard about me, he just laughed and said ‘It’s OK, Rachel, I still love you.’

When I went to bed that night, I re-ran tapes of the two sessions over and over again in my head. I’d been devastated with sadness about Luke, about it being over. But as I remembered the terrible, vicious, hurtful things both he and Brigit had said, my grief mutated into anger. My fury burgeoned and bubbled, festered and spat. I couldn’t sleep because I kept having imaginary conversations in which I floored both of them with scathing, pithy remarks. In the end, even though I was terrified of her temper, I woke Chaquie. I had to talk to someone. Luckily she was too dazed to give vent to her recent narkiness. As she sat, blinking like a rabbit, I screeched at her about how humiliated I’d been. I promised her that I’d get my revenge on Luke and Brigit, no matter how long it took.

‘When Dermot came as your ISO, how did you cope?’ I demanded, wild-eyed.

‘I was raging,’ she yawned. ‘Then Josephine told me I was using my anger to avoid accepting any responsibility for the situation. Now please can I go back to sleep?’

I knew I’d be interrogated by Josephine in group the next day.

I’d seen her do it to Neil, John Joe, Mike, Misty, Vincent and Chaquie. She wouldn’t treat me any differently. Even though I was different.