Bit by bit, Neil lost the ratings war as the inmates flocked to my side. I took advantage of each new arrival to voice my grievances afresh.

I wanted soothing hands laid on my fevered feelings. And, because Luke had made me feel so worthless, I wanted to even up the balance by reducing him to nothingness.

The inmates didn’t have Celine’s objections to tearing Luke apart. And they joined in with stories of their own, ‘Great questionnaires I have known’. We gorged ourselves on terrible tales of bastard friends and relations who had stabbed us in the back in many a Cloisters’ questionnaire. I almost enjoyed myself. I didn’t mind making common cause with the others because I needed someone to talk to, even if we were as similar as people from different planets. Sitting in the thick of a tableful of people who had nothing but sympathy and bars of chocolate for me was nice.

Several people offered to beat Luke up. Which touched me deeply. Especially as one of them was Chaquie.

They were more than happy to believe every terrible thing I told them about Luke. Except, of course, for the bit about the blind man’s fiddle. But I smoothed over it and soon we were back to dishing Luke’s dirt.

‘Luke Costello couldn’t tell the truth about anything!’ I declared. ‘You know, he’d lie if you asked him his favourite colour.’

The more I blackened his name, the better I felt. By the end I really did believe he was as awful as I professed.

Chris didn’t reappear. I kept watching the door wondering where he was gone with Misty. And what they were doing.

Fuckers.

But I didn’t have a chance to become morose because Mike and the gang were very interested in the high-pressured life I lived in New York.

‘And would you be very busy at work?’ Eddie asked. They all moved closer to me, their eyes bright with interest.

‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ I told them. ‘Eighteen-hour days wouldn’t be unusual. And you could lose your job like THAT.’ I snapped my fingers to demonstrate how easy it was. ‘And there’s no dole in New York.’

They oooohhhed with shock.

‘You could end up on the streets in a matter of days,’ I said darkly. ‘And it’s much colder in New York than it is here.’

‘Colder than Leitrim?’ asked Clarence.

‘Much colder.’

‘Colder than Cork?’ asked Don.

‘Much colder.’

‘Colder than Cav…?’ began John Joe.

‘Colder than anywhere in Ireland,’ I interrupted, slightly irritated.

‘God, it sounds like an awful place, altogether,’ said Mike. ‘Why did you ever go there?’

I gave him a sad-girl smile and said ‘Why indeed?’

‘And this cocaine stuff is just like coffee?’ asked Peter.

‘No different. In fact I think they’re from the same plant.’

‘And how long were you going with this Luke character?’ someone else asked.

‘About six months.’

‘And he owes you money?’

‘Loads.’

‘That’s shocking.’

‘And he’s made me feel so humiliated,’ I sniffed, with a twinge of genuine grief.

‘No one can make us feel anything,’ interrupted Clarence. ‘Our feelings are our own responsibility.’

A silence fell and all the others swivelled round and stared at him in shock.

‘WHAT?’ Eddie demanded, his red face so scrunched up in annoyance and disbelief, he looked constipated.

‘Our feelings are ou…’ Clarence repeated, parrot-fashion.

‘You fucking eejit,’ roared Vincent. ‘You’re talking shite. Are you trying to get a job here?’

‘I’m only saying!’ protested Clarence. ‘That’s what they said to me when my brothers humbled me. No one can make us feel any way unless we let them.’

‘We’re trying to cheer up RACHEL,’ Don hooted. ‘The child is UPSET!’

‘I’m trying to cheer her up too,’ Clarence insisted. ‘If she can detach from this Luke fella…’

‘AH, SHUT UP,’ chorused several voices.

‘When you’ve been here five weeks, you’ll know what I mean,’ Clarence said loftily.

26

When I went to bed that night I was confused.

Luke’s not that bad, a little voice pointed out. You lied about him to get everyone on your side.

He is that bad, another voice insisted. Just look at what he’s done to you. He’s humiliated you, he’s got you into loads of trouble, he’s turned against you. He rejected you before you left New York and he reiterated it with that bloody questionnaire thing. So, yes, he is that bad. Maybe not in the exact way that you told everyone downstairs tonight. But he is that bad. Satisfied, I turned over to go to sleep.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

I supposed, looking back, he’d always been madly uptight about me taking drugs.

I had never forgotten the way he had behaved at my party. The cheek of him considering he hadn’t even been invited!

Brigit and I had held the party about two weeks after the Rickshaw Rooms débâcle.

Throwing a party had actually been my idea. I was so fed up with not being invited to the cool East Village and SoHo parties that I decided to throw a party myself and invite every good-looking, well-connected, groovily employed person I could pretend to know. That way, when they had a party, they’d have to invite me.

Brigit and I selected carefully and strategically.

‘What about Nadia…?’

‘No-bum Nadia? What about her?’

‘She works at Donna Karan. Does the word discount mean anything to you?’

‘Can’t we just invite fat, ugly girls…?’

‘No. There aren’t any. Now, what about Fineas?’

‘But he’s only a barman.’

‘Yes, but think long-term here. If he’s our pal he’ll give us a drink when we’re broke. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, is all the time.’

‘OK, Fineas is in. Carvela?’

‘No way! Andrew the ad-man was mine until she came on the scene with her pierced tongue.’

‘But she knows Madonna.’

‘Giving a person a french manicure once doesn’t amount to knowing them. She’s not coming, OK? We need straight men, we’re very short of those.’