Then my rage at Luke came back. I was angrier than ever.

‘Luke Costello is a lying bastard,’ I spat in tearful fury.

Celine laughed.

But in a kindly way.

Just to confuse me

‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded.

‘Rachel, it’s my experience that what people say on those forms is true,’ Celine supplied. ‘I’ve worked here for seventeen years and not once has someone lied in them.’

‘There’s always a first time,’ I quipped.

‘Have you thought about what an ordeal it must have been for Luke to write what he did?’

‘Why would it be an ordeal?’ I said in surprise.

‘Because if he knows enough about you to be able to comment on your addiction, he knows you well enough to care about you. He must have known his revelations would hurt you. No one is comfortable doing that to someone they love.’

‘You don’t know him.’ I was beginning to gather steam. ‘He’s a nasty piece of work. It’s not just the questionnaire. He’s always been a liar.’

Has he? a part of me wondered in surprise.

Who cares? another bit of my brain replied. He is now, OK?

‘You didn’t make a very wise choice of boyfriend,’ Celine said, with another of those plump, housewifey, bread-bakery smiles.

That threw me. For a moment I didn’t know what to say. Then I rallied. When in doubt, flatter.

‘I know I didn’t,’ I said earnestly. ‘You’re absolutely right, Celine, I can see that now.’

‘Or maybe he’s not a bad person, at all,’ she said mildly. ‘Maybe you just want to believe he is, so that you can discount any information he gives about your addiction.’

Why did she think she knew so much about it? I wondered. She was only a bloody nurse. All she was good for was sticking thermometers up people’s bums!

25

My consumption of Celine’s last Club Milk coincided with the others being let out of group. Time to return to my own planet.

When I got to the dining-room, sleepy from shock and sugar, I felt as though I’d been away a long time.

Neil the wanker was still the centre of attention. Surrounded by a circle of people, nodding sympathetically and making murmury, agreeing noises. I concluded that they were all wife-beating, lying drunks as well. Even the women. I could hear him complaining ‘I feel so betrayed, I can’t believe what she’s done to me, and she’s bonkers, you know, she should be in a mental home, not me…’

I took a quick pause from hating Luke so that I could hate Neil instead. Anyway, his seconds as the most interesting thing in the dining-room were numbered. I had a disaster, a real disaster, which would blow his one right out of the water. His disaster wasn’t worthy to touch the hem of the garment of my disaster!

Trying to exude beauty and tragedy, I stood in the doorway.

Right on cue, Chris looked up.

‘I thought you were going home,’ he said, with a wink and elbow smile.

My wistful-heroine look wobbled uncertainly. He’d been nice to me earlier, why wasn’t he being nice to me now?

‘Cheer up,’ he twinkled. ‘I’m sure some of the lads would be delighted to give you a massage, one of those mutual full body ones. They can ask Sadie for some chip oil.’

‘They can ask, but they won’t get,’ called Sadie, who happened to be bustling lumpily past.

I winced with embarrassment, as I wondered if everyone was laughing at me for thinking the Cloisters was a health farm.

‘It’s not that,’ I said, hurt. ‘Something else has happened.’

I was almost glad that Luke had stitched me up so viciously. It would knock the unwelcome flippancy out of Chris good and proper. How dare he? Chip oil indeed! This was serious.

‘A questionnaire has arrived?’ He quirked an eyebrow at me.

Instantly on the defensive, I jerked my head up at him. ‘How do you know?’

‘One usually comes when you’ve been here a couple of days,’ Chris said, his face serious. To my relief he seemed to have stopped laughing at me. ‘And the shit hits the fan. At least the first instalment does. Who’s it from?’

‘My boyfriend.’ My eyes filled with tears. ‘My ex-boyfriend, I mean.

‘You wouldn’t believe what he said,’ I said, pleased by the fat tears rolling down my face. I was counting on them to elicit sympathy and lots of comforting, physical contact from Chris.

Sure enough, he gently led me to a chair and pulled another up close, kindness on his face, our knees almost touching.

Bingo!

‘I probably would believe what he said, you know,’ Chris said. He stroked his hand along my forearm with an intimacy that embarrassed, yet pleased me. ‘I’ve been here two weeks, and I’ve heard a lot of questionnaires. I’m sure you’re no worse than any of the rest of us.’

I was slightly mesmerized by his closeness to me, the heat of his big man’s hand along my sleeve, but I came out of my trance to protest tearfully. ‘You don’t understand, I’m only here because I thought this kip was a health farm. There’s nothing the matter with me at all!’

I half-expected him to disagree, but he just made general, soothing-type noises, the sort a vet might make to a cow in labour.

I was relieved.

And impressed. So many men go to flustery pieces at a woman’s tears. Which, of course is no bad thing, either. It can be very handy sometimes. But Chris was totally in control.

If he’s this in charge just when I’m crying, what must he be like in bed, I found myself wondering.

‘So what exactly did your boyfriend say?’ Chris asked, hauling my imagination back from where it had been traipsing around in the place where people don’t wear any clothes.

‘Ex-boyfriend,’ I said hastily. Lest there be any confusion.

As I turned my attention to what Luke had said on the form, I suddenly remembered how sweet he once used to be to me. A wave of excruciating nostalgia washed over me and a fresh batch of tears arrived.

‘I’ve only been told about one of the things Luke said,’ I sobbed. ‘And that was a LIE!’

It wasn’t a lie, as such, not technically a lie. But it gave a misleading picture of me, made me sound as if I wasn’t a nice person. So in a way, it was a lie. And best kept from Chris.