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Maggie’s. ‘Wait a minute, Claire,’ she said, her head nodding sagely. ‘Be patient. Just wait a wee minute and you’ll
see.’
    I did wait. I can’t say that I was patient, though. I had toke after toke, probably more than my share, but nobody commented. By that stage, most people had begun to inhabit a private
universe of one. And then, without warning, all was revealed. My head seemed to part company from the rest of my body and it became light and free and insubstantial. I heard somebody laugh and
realized that it was me. I looked around. I wanted to see how things had changed in the longest time it had taken for me to inhale, exhale and sit back, resting my loose and exhausted shoulders
against the wall behind me. Then I closed my eyes. I had to. The last thing I saw was Georgie’s face smiling over at me, her expression full of meaning and her blue eyes brimming with
significance.
    I heard slivers of conversation and the shrapnel of argument. Almost at once, I was consumed by the notion that those around me, the whole room, even Georgie and Maggie, were talking about me
and pointing the finger in a way I hadn’t experienced since I was twelve. At the same time, the world – my own, physical world – started to lurch alarmingly. I snapped my eyes
open, except that the snapping seemed to take a very long time indeed. I hadn’t eaten since lunch at twelve, so my stomach couldn’t be churning, but it was. I tried to stand up, but my
legs wanted to crumple and I needed to laugh in that tearful, hysterical way that made my chest tighten in panic and my palms begin to sweat.
    Anyhow, after what seemed like hours, maybe even days, I felt Georgie on one side of me and Maggie on the other. They hauled me to my feet, staggered me out into the kitchen, over to the back
door. I took in great gulps of air, but the smoke and soot suspended in the calm and frosty night made me want to retch. I felt the awful dizziness that meant I was going to pass out. Black spots
darted across my eyes and a buzzing began in my ears. Above its noise I could hear myself moaning softly. Someone called Paul unfolded himself from a kitchen chair and I was put sitting on it.
Someone else, and here I think I sensed Maggie’s gentle palm, pressed on the back of my neck and my head descended towards my knees. I found myself admiring the black swirls on my new skirt.
A glass of water found its way into my hands and by then I was able to sit up and sip. Little by little, I began to feel better. Georgie was smoking a cigarette, her eyes a startling navy in a
wide, pale face.
    Maggie shook her head at me. I noticed that her lips were beautifully defined, the scarlet lipstick glossy and sensual. ‘I told you it would make you sick,’ she said. Which was not
quite what she had said, but never mind. I was grateful to her anyhow. And now, someone else again, Georgie, I think, was rubbing their hands up and down my back. Inside my head quietened and my
stomach began to settle, retreating from my ribcage. Paul – he of the kitchen chair – handed me a rather dirty white cup with a teabag floating in scummy water. Once Maggie poured the
milk in, though, it began to look better. She fished out the teabag by one protruding corner. ‘Ouch,’ she said, ‘it’s hot. Here, drink this.’
    And I did. Hot, sweet tea. I felt comforted, happy even in the middle of my sickness. I felt as though I’d come home, that these people would look after me and wouldn’t abandon me.
It was as though a great expansiveness had just wound its arms around me. I had fallen in love with the whole world, and the whole world had fallen in love with me.
    ‘You’re looking much better now,’ Georgie said, and smoothed my hair back from my forehead with one cool, competent hand. ‘Think you’d better stick to the Guinness,
though,’ she whispered, bending low towards my ear so that I was the only one who could possibly hear her. Her grin was wicked, and