My skin was twitching. Oh, why had Luke come when Daryl was here? And why did Daryl have to be there when Luke arrived?

It never rains but it fecking well pours and I was afraid I’d be washed away in the deluge.

I was afraid that Daryl would think badly of me for knowing someone who wore a Lord of the Rings T-shirt.

But, and this surprised me, I was also planking it because Luke obviously thought that Daryl was some kind of shallow disco-bunny.

I like Luke, I realized, not one bit happy with the discovery.

Then Luke focused on Daryl and his face changed.

‘Darren,’ he nodded grimly.

‘Daryl,’ Daryl corrected.

‘I know,’ said Luke.

‘Would anyone like a drink?’ I asked shrilly, before a fight broke out.

Luke followed me into the kitchen.

‘Rachel,’ he crooned softly, his big sexy body nearly touching mine, ‘You don’t remember, do you?’

‘What?’ I got a faint hint of his smell, and it made me want to bite him.

‘You asked me to come round tonight.’

‘Did I? When?’

‘This morning as I was leaving.’

My heart was seized by the cold hand of fear because I had no recollection of doing so. And it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.

‘Oh, God,’ I giggled nervously, ‘I mustn’t have been awake.’ Although I’d been awake enough to get him to ring in sick for me.

‘Pretend you’re my brother,’ I remembered saying to him.

‘In that case,’ Luke said, his face stony, putting the remaining carton down on the counter, ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’

Bleakly, aware of how badly I had handled everything, aware that it was all my fault, I watched him leave.

I wanted to stop him, but every part of me except my brain was paralysed, as if I’d just woken up while under general anaesthetic.

Come back, my head shouted, but my voice wouldn’t cooperate.

Go after him and grab him, my head ordered, but my arms and legs were having a power-failure.

As the door slammed behind him, I heard Daryl sniff and say ‘Hey, you know, that guy is rilly hostill.’

Wearily, I turned my attention to Daryl, as I decided to salvage what I could from the situation.

36

‘Jesus, it’s nearly nine o’clock!’ Chris declared. A great stampede out of the dining-room began for Monday morning group. Sour Kraut’s group on their way to the Library, Chris at its head. Barry Grant’s group off to the Sanctuary and Josephine’s group to the Abbot’s Quarter.

Pushing and shoving, we raced down the corridor. In we crowded, good-naturedly clamouring about getting the best seats. Chaquie and I wrestled as we tried to get on the same one. With a hefty shove she heaved me onto the floor and bounced triumphantly onto the chair. We were both in hysterics. Mike got the other good chair. Then Misty sat on top of him, wriggled around and said ‘I want it. Give it to me,’ she smirked, double-entendring like there was no tomorrow. Mike went grey and limped away to the worst chair, where the spring could draw blood from a buttock if it was a long session.

Josephine kicked off by saying ‘Rachel, we’ve been neglecting you a bit this past week, haven’t we?’

My bowels turned to water.

Questionnaire time. How could I ever have thought I’d escape it? That’d teach me for having a laugh with Chaquie. My high spirits had tempted fate.

‘Haven’t we?’ Josephine asked again.

‘I don’t mind,’ I mumbled.

‘I know you don’t mind,’ Josephine said jovially. ‘Which is precisely why we’re going to make you the centre of attention.’

My heart pounded and helpless rage battled round inside me. I wanted to overturn chairs, punch smug-arse Josephine, run out the gates and all the way back to New York and kill Luke.

It struck me forcibly how mad it was that I was there and had to endure such humiliation and pain.

Josephine rustled some sheets of paper in her hand and I stared in mute anguish. Don’t do it, please don’t do it.

‘I’d like you to write your life story,’ she said, holding out a piece of paper towards me. ‘Here are the questions I want addressed when you’re doing it.’

It took me a short while to realize that I’d been saved, that she wasn’t going to read out Luke’s betrayal. All she wanted me to do was write a stupid life story. No problem!

‘No need to look so frightened,’ she said with a knowing leer.

I smiled weakly.

Shakily, I sneaked a quick glance at the sheet of paper she had given me. All it was, was a list of questions that were to serve as guidelines for writing my life story. ‘What is your earliest memory?’ ‘Who was your favourite person when you were three years old?’ ‘What do you remember about being five years old?’ ‘Ten?’ ‘Fifteen?’ ‘Twenty?’

I’d thought doing this would be a difficult, creative exercise, as I tried to dredge up random memories of my earlier life. Instead it would be as simple as filling out an insurance claim form. Good.

That morning’s session was devoted to Clarence who, at over six weeks, would be getting out fairly shortly.

‘You realize that if you want to stay away from drink,’ Josephine said to him, ‘you’ll need to change your life when you get back outside.’

‘I’ve changed already, though,’ Clarence said eagerly. ‘I know things about myself that I’d never seen before in all my fifty-one years. I’ve had the courage to listen to my family telling their stories about my drinking. And I can see that I was selfish and irresponsible.’

It was strange to hear someone as odd as Clarence speaking so knowledgeably and authoritatively.

‘I grant you that, Clarence,’ Josephine said, with a smile that for once wasn’t ironic. ‘You’ve come a long way. But I’m talking about the practical changes you have to make.’

‘But I’ve hardly thought of drink while I’ve been in here,’ Clarence insisted. ‘Only when the bad stuff happened.’

‘Exactly,’ said Josephine. ‘And bad stuff will happen out there as well, because that’s the nature of life. But you’ll be in a position to get your hands on alcohol then.

‘What can you suggest?’ She threw the question open to the floor.