There was nothing else for it, there was nowhere else it could go. I put it in my knickers. The glass was cold against my skin and I felt foolish in the extreme, but I took a couple of steps and it stayed secure. Success!

I felt quite good until I caught a quick mental image of myself and something seemed wrong.

How did I end up like this? Surely I was living in New York, young, independent, glamorous, successful? And not twenty-seven, unemployed, mistaken for a drug addict, in a treatment centre in the back arse of nowhere with an empty Valium bottle in my knickers?

8

‘Poor bastards,’ I thought in sympathy, as I looked at the long wooden table where the alcoholics and addicts sat eating their lunch. ‘Poor, poor bastards.’

I was now an official inmate.

I had had my blood test and passed with flying colours, my knickers hadn’t been searched, my bags had, but nothing untoward had been found, and Dad and Helen had left with the minimum of affection and tears (‘Behave yourself for Christ’s sake. I’ll be up on Sunday week,’ said Dad. ‘Bye bye, you mentaller, weave me something nice,’ said Helen.)

As I saw Dad’s car pull, very slowly, out of the grounds, I congratulated myself on how calm I was and how the thought of a drug hadn’t even crossed my mind. Drug addict, indeed!

Dr Billings interrupted my staring out the window and told me that the other clients, as he called them, were having their lunch. He just missed Helen making grotesque faces at him out the back window as the car disappeared.

‘Come and have lunch,’ he invited. ‘And I’ll show you to your room afterwards.’

A thrill of excitement ran through me at the thought of seeing some pop stars. Despite Helen convincing me that the famous rich people would be segregated from the ornery folk, hope jumped in my stomach like a frog.

And, of course, the mad addicts and alcoholics and compulsive overeaters and gamblers who made up the rest of the clientele would be worth a look at also. It was with a light step that I followed Dr Billings up the stairs and into the dining-room, where he introduced me by saying ‘Ladies and gentlemen, meet Rachel, who’ll be joining us today.’

A sea of faces looked up at me and said ‘Hello’. I did a quick sweep of them and, at first glance, there was no one that was obviously a pop star. Pity.

Neither did anyone seem very One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Even more of a pity.

In fact the alcos seemed very friendly. They made a great show of making space for me at the table.

Once I got a proper look at the room, I found it was surprisingly unglamorous. Though it was always possible that the interior designer had meant the yellow, shiny, institutional walls in an ironic, postmodern way. And, of course, lino was very fashionable again. Even if the buckled brown tiles on the floor looked as if they’d been there from first time round.

I had a quick look round the table and there seemed to be about twenty ‘clients’. Only about five were women.

The fat old man on my right was shovelling food into his mouth. A compulsive overeater? The fat young one on my left introduced himself as Davy.

‘Hello, Davy.’ I smiled with dignity. There was no need to be completely standoffish. I would keep a strict distance, but I would always be pleasant and polite, I thought. After all, I was sure that their lives were miserable enough. There was no need for me to add to it.

‘What are you in for?’ he asked.

‘Drugs,’ I replied, with a ‘Would-you-believe-it?’ little laugh.

‘Anything else?’ asked Davy hopefully.

‘No,’ I said, puzzled. He looked disappointed and stared down at his plate of food. Mountains of turnip and spuds and chops.

‘What are you in for?’ I asked. I felt it was only polite.

‘Gambling,’ he said gloomily.

‘Alcohol,’ said the man beside him, although I hadn’t asked.

‘Alcohol,’ said the man beside him.

I had started something. Once you asked someone what they were in for, it had a domino effect and the whole place felt obliged to tell you the nature of their addiction.

‘Alcohol,’ said the next man, although I couldn’t see him.

‘Alcohol,’ came another voice, further away.

‘Alcohol,’ said another voice, even further.

‘Alcohol,’ came a faint voice at the end of the table.

‘Alcohol,’ came another voice, this time slightly nearer. They’d started working up the other side of the table.

‘Alcohol,’ a tiny bit louder.

‘Alcohol.’ All the time the voices were getting nearer.

‘Alcohol,’ said the man sitting opposite me.

‘And drugs,’ interrupted a voice from further back. ‘Don’t forget, Vincent, you found out in group that you’ve a problem with drugs too.’

‘Fuck off, you child-molester,’ said the man opposite me angrily. ‘You’re a fine one to talk, Frederick, you shirt-lifter.’

No one batted an eyelid at the fight. It was just like dinner in our house.

Was Frederick really a child-molester and shirt-lifter?

But I was not to find out. At least, not yet.

‘Alcohol,’ continued the next man.

‘Alcohol.’

‘Alcohol.’

‘Drugs,’ came a woman’s voice.

Drugs! I craned my neck to get a good look at her. She was about fifty. Probably a housewife addicted to tranquillizers. Pity that, for a second I thought I might have someone to play with.

‘Drugs,’ said a man’s voice.

I got a look at him and my blood quickened perceptibly. He was young, the only person I’d seen so far who was about my age. And he was really good-looking. Well, maybe he wasn’t, but he seemed good-looking in comparison to the gang of bald, fat, undeniably unattractive – although I’m not for one moment saying that they weren’t nice people – men that the table was packed with.

‘Drugs,’ came another man’s voice. But he looked like a bit of an acid casualty. The bulgy, staring eyes and backcombed hair gave it away.

‘Alcohol.’

‘Food.’

‘Food.’

And eventually everyone had introduced themselves to me. Or at least they’d let me know what they were in for. The alcoholics outnumbered the drug addicts by about four to one and there were a couple of overeaters. But there was only one gambler, Davy. No wonder he was disappointed.