Chaquie kept going to the window and eventually at half past one she said ‘Here he is.’

It was almost impossible to describe her tone of voice. Admiration, relief and hatred in equal measures.

‘Where?’ I rushed to the window to get a look at him.

‘There, getting out of the new Volvo.’

I stared down in fascination, hoping he’d be horrible. But from a distance he didn’t look too bad. With his deep, deep tan and suspiciously black hair, he could be described as the kind of man ‘who looks after himself’. He was wearing a denim shirt, a blouson leather jacket and a pair of chinos with the waistband up almost around his chest, one of the tricks tubby men use in a pointless attempt to hide their big stomachs. From the look of Dermot, Chaquie wasn’t the only one to enjoy a Bacardi and coke from time to time.

As I stared at him, searching for faults, I noticed that he had small hands and, worse again, small feet. You could barely see his shoes under the cuffs of his trousers. I hated men with small hands and feet. It made them seem very unmanly, like imps or gnomes. Helen used to insist that men with small hands were her favourite, but that was only because she had a really small chest, and the smaller a man’s hands were, the bigger her tits in comparison.

Chaquie hurriedly sprayed herself with almost an entire bottle of White Linen, then, smoothing her skirt and her hair, left the room to greet him.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be alone, so I decided to go downstairs to see what was happening. I bumped into Mike on the landing. He was gloomily looking out the window the way Chaquie had been a few minutes ago.

‘Hello,’ I said, keen to talk. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Come here,’ he said, and pointed out the window.

A woman and three children straggled up the drive, through the rain. They looked exhausted and frozen.

‘That’s my wife and kids.’ His tone of voice was weird. First Chaquie, now Mike, they were all at it.

Mike’s wife had a holdall over her shoulder.

‘See that bag,’ muttered Mike, pointing at it.

I nodded.

‘That’s for me,’ he said.

I nodded again.

‘Full of fucking biscuits,’ he said bitterly. And off he went.

‘What use are biscuits to me?’ he roared back over his shoulder.

‘I don’t know,’ I said nervously.

A while later I made for the dining-room. The corridor was full of happy children hurting each other and breaking things.

To my horror, I tripped on a My Little Pony and went flying. But, like a video of a dynamited tower block being run in reverse, I managed to spring back up before my knees had barely glanced off the floor. I looked around furtively to make sure that neither Chris nor Misty O’Malley had seen me. Two revolting, freckled little boys pointed at me and laughed until they cried.

As I went into the dining-room, Misty O’Malley was on her way out and she rudely pushed past me. It wasn’t just a brief brush, but more like a hefty shove. She didn’t apologize. I stared after her and even though I couldn’t see her face, I knew she was smirking. Having a good laugh at me.

Tears filled my eyes. What had I ever done to her?

The dining-room was packed with the inmates and their visitors. Apparently when the weather was good, they could all walk around the grounds. But on wet days like today, they had to crowd, ten-deep, into the dining-room and watch the windows steam up.

I found Chaquie and Dermot and brazenly sat down near them, so that Chaquie was forced to introduce me. Dermot made eye contact and gave me the once over automatically. Not because he found me attractive, but because he wondered what I thought of him. Up close, you could see hundreds of broken capillaries lurking beneath his sunbed tan. I could understand why Chaquie was so keen to escape the attentions of Dermot and his flute. He was vile. And the obvious care he took of his appearance made him even more vile. He kept touching his hair, which, as well as being dyed to within an inch of its life, was blowdried, flicked and rigid with spray. It had so much fullness it was nearly like a beehive.

I watched him with blatant amusement. I knew his sort. A frequenter of wine bars, a buyer of drinks, the kind of man who, shortly after he had introduced himself would ask ‘What age do you think I am? No, go on, tell me. Another drink?’

The funniest thing was seeing Dermot and his ilk trying to dance. And they always seemed to drink girly things like Campari and soda or Bacardi and coke. Sweet, fizzy, undemanding drinks. Brigit and I had met his like countless times. They’d buy us drinks all evening, then at closing time we ran away on them. Memories of the pair of us roaring, laughing, hiding round corners, saying ‘You’d better get off with him’, ‘No, fuck off, you’d better’, came rushing back.

You could tell just by looking at him that Dermot was the kind of man who lied about being married. (Probably even to his wife.) The kind of man who gave some elaborate excuse to get out of inviting you back to his flat. The kind of man that I would end up being grateful to snag if I didn’t step on it, I thought, sunk into sudden gloom.

Chaquie turned her back on me and engaged Dermot in a low, muttered conversation. Not that that indicated discord or anything. The room was full of people having low, muttered conversations. They had no choice. Next week when Mum and Dad came to visit, we too would sit at the table and have a low, muttered conversation. The air was so full of the sounds of low, muttered conversations that I began to feel sleepy. The only thing that kept me from nodding off was the sounds of people tripping in the corridor and Mike occasionally shouting ‘Willy, you little bastard, knock off trying to kill everyone with Michelle’s Little Pony yoke!’

I felt better that Chaquie’s husband was so awful. Until I looked round the room and saw Misty O’Malley leaning against the radiators, having a low, muttered conversation with a tall, blond, sickeningly gorgeous man and I felt lonely and jealous. I hated that there was such injustice in the world. Millions of men were mad about Misty and she was such a rude, unpleasant little bitch, and not even that beautiful, really, if you thought about it. While I was so nice and hadn’t anyone.

I mooned around, killing time until three o’clock, trying to radiate orphanhood. I hoped to catch someone’s eye so that I could smile bravely. I wanted everyone to wonder why I had no visitors and nudge each other and say ‘Who’s that poor child? Give her some chocolate.’ But no one had any interest in me. Neil was sitting with a plain-looking woman and two little girls. He looked up and gave me a lovely, warm smile, then went back to his wife. They looked as if they were discussing dampproofing the garage.