Chapter Theme:

Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

The flight home is twelve hours that feels like twelve days.

Sleep has never come easy to Irene. Always the first awake before dawn has even broken, sipping black coffee in front of cold pinchbeck sunrises, out of bed long before Seulgi has ever stirred. Occasionally just watching her there, soundly asleep, so still and peaceful. Much of their winter break was spent doing just that. Breakfast in bed, distant dawns, Irene in silent appreciation. Thinking: How did I ever become so lucky?

As she steps off the plane in Korea on Tuesday morning she’s not thinking anything at all. Part of her wants to sleep in her own bed and part of her wants to jump into the closest simulator and drive until the machine breaks down. In the airport she catches up to Yeri signing autographs for the fans and signs a good fifty or so herself. It isn’t until they’re walking back through the gift shops and restaurants and toward the exit terminals beyond passport control that Yeri says to her, without turning, ‘Did you hear them back there?’

‘What?’

‘Saying they’ll always support you.’

‘So?’

‘I thought it was kinda cute. Would love to have fans like that.’

‘You do have fans like that.’

‘I mean, maybe a couple. But you’ve got, like, legions. It’s crazy. And sort of inspiring, honestly. People willing to go through thick and thin with you.’

‘I’m lucky,’ Irene says idly, browsing through the aisles. She reaches the magazine rack and takes a moment to search through the newest ones, freshly printed this weekend, the sporting magazines and newspapers right at the front.

‘Hey,’ Yeri says, ‘are you listening to me?’

She picks up one of the magazines and holds it so Yeri can see it. The front cover is a picture of Irene at Monza in the rain, car backwards in the mud, down in last place. The text reads in bold red writing CATASTROFE PER IL CAMPIONE A MONZA. ‘Seen this?’ she says. ‘Not the most flattering picture ever.’

‘Why are you looking at that? Are you still into the habit of picking up every new magazine that has your picture on it?’

‘Yeah,’ Irene says, flicking to the first page. ‘Good or bad. It’s sort of calming in a way, reading what people are saying about me.’

‘It’s not good for your mental health.’

‘I disagree. Could’ve picked a better picture, though. Or at least a prettier one.’

‘Why is it in Italian?’

‘Because it’s Italian, Yeri.’

‘No, I mean, why are there Italian newspapers here in the airport?’

‘Because it’s an international place,’ Irene says. ‘I don’t know. I’m not complaining. Look, this one’s in French. And this one’s in English.’

‘Are you gonna buy any of them?’

She thinks about it for a second. Looking at the covers. They’re all slightly different but the gist is the same – her in Monza in last place. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I’ll wait for the new ones to be printed first. See what they say about what just happened in Brazil. Then I’ll buy a bunch.’

‘I’m telling you, it’s not good for you.’

‘I think it is.’

‘Well,’ Yeri says, ‘I’m not gonna argue with you. I can’t be bothered. You wanna get something to eat or something? My head is killing. I feel like I haven’t eaten in centuries.’

‘I think I’m just going to head home for the day,’ Irene says.

‘Sure. Are you okay? Apart from the whole, you know…. crashing thing. You seem a little out of it today. Or maybe it’s just because you’ve been on a flight.’

‘I’ll tell you some other time.’

Yeri looks at her for a minute. There’s an honesty in Irene’s reply that has Yeri’s whole face changing almost immediately, a sort of sincere and worried scowl that Irene has only seen a handful of times. It reminds her that Yeri is much more than what she portrays herself as. That there’s so much behind her. ‘Sure,’ Yeri says. ‘I’ll see you on set tomorrow, yeah?’

‘Yeah. And I’ll tell you, then.’

‘Alright,’ Yeri says with a grin. ‘It’s a date.’

For a long time Irene just watches her. It’s almost comical, Yeri stood there fiddling with the digital screen of her smartwatch, tapping at it idly and frowning and swiping through the little light-up menu strapped to her wrist and adjusting something and frowning again. So much so that Irene has to stifle a laugh. ‘Do we get to keep these?’ Yeri asks.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I mean, after all of that, I’d assume so. I’d hope so, at least. Otherwise what’s the point of doing all this advertisement stuff if we don’t get to actually use the products ourselves? I feel like that’s gotta be the biggest benefit of driving for Samsung, right? All the cool gear. Can’t believe I’ve never thought of this.’

Irene ignores her. She says goodbye to the director and the makeup artists and set designers and shimmies out of her Samsung jacket and spends a while just sitting there in the rehearsal room sipping her stale coffee and listening to Yeri fiddle with the buttons on her watch and hum to herself in frustration as nothing works out the way it should. The lights feel very bright, almost painfully so. She turns her face up and winces and thinks of Seulgi and wonders afterward why she did that. And why Seulgi came to her. The truth is these two days have been the longest she’s willingly ignored Seulgi in a long time and her stomach feels sick at the thought of it but what is time apart if not a self-inflicted torture at first and a much-needed revelation soon after? When Yeri’s finished with her watch she looks at Irene on the bench and frowns again.

‘What?’ Irene says. ‘What are you looking at?’

‘Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong yet? Or is it just the racing?’

‘Why are you so bothered?’

‘Well, because contrary to what you might believe, I actually really like you. I mean, I think we get along much better than people think we do. Better than most driver pairings on the grid, honestly. And I know what you’re like when it comes to your feelings and talking to people. So, go on. I’m here for you. I’ll listen.’

Irene smiles a tired smile. What remains of the stale black coffee is cold and unappealing and she drops the styrofoam cup into the plastic trashbag and rubs her eyes. ‘It’s a long story,’ she says.

‘Well, start in the middle or something.’

‘I broke it off with Seulgi.’

‘What? Broke wh— oh, . The relationship? Like, the two of you?’

‘Yeah, the two of us.’

‘As in, you ended it romantically?’

Irene nods. There’s a long and uncomfortable silence in which Yeri frowns and hums and eventually says, ‘Why the did you do that? Am I missing something here?’

‘Like I said, long story.’

‘Well, are you gonna explain it to me? Or at least try to?’

She thinks about it. Perhaps the reality is that other than Seulgi, Yeri is the only person she can truly talk to. Even her engineer is distant and professional - work colleagues at best. So she says softly, ‘I need to figure things out for a while. Need to get my head straight. And I couldn’t do that with her around because she’d just be on my mind constantly and I’d be worried about her and thinking things I shouldn’t think and everything would just get more and more scrambled in her head. I need things to be clear and straightforward if I want to fix them. I need it all to be laid out for me.’

‘What are you trying to fix?’

‘A lot of things. It’s going to sound quite sad.’

‘Try me.’

Irene sighs. ‘I just feel like I need to be…human, you know? If that makes any sense. I’ve said this so many times to Seulgi but never really confronted it properly. My whole life has been racing. You know that. Everyone knows it. And then Seulgi came along and I told her I’d be alright with losing because I had her and it would all work out fine and do you know what? I never lost. I won last year. I never had to come face to face with the reality of losing because I didn’t lose. How am I meant to cope with that? Maybe I’d be alright with it. Maybe I’d go off the deep end. I don’t know, because it never happened. That’s what I’m trying to solve.’

‘You’re trying to…lose? Like, the championship?’

‘No, I mean I’m trying to come to grips with the fact that I might lose and that needs to be okay. I need to have a life outside of this, because this isn’t healthy – this state of mind, it’s not good for me. It’s not good for anyone. I need to just learn to take things as they come and confront the fact that I might not be the best anymore. And that I don’t need to be. I just need to have faith in myself that whatever I do, it’ll be alright. It’ll be successful. I don’t just mean winning. I mean in helping me just be happy with myself. And I think the best way to do that is to be on my own for a while and to find myself again. To learn to find what I’ve been missing. Friends, activities, family, whatever. Or maybe just the idea of racing without having to worry about what I’ll say to Seulgi all the time, or how she’ll react when something happens, or anything like that. So I decided to call it quits for the time being.’

‘For the time being,’ Yeri says.

‘Until after the season is over. That’s what I’m thinking. And then, with any luck, I’ll be better and she’ll be better and we can be better together.’

‘I admire your optimism.’

‘Thanks. It’s kind of rare for me to be optimistic in the first place.’

Yeri just smiles softly. It’s a smile far beyond her years and it tells Irene that she understands more than she usually lets on. ‘Oh ,’ she mumbles.

‘What?’

‘I almost forgot.’

‘Forgot what?’

Yeri rummages around in her backpack and pulls out a small box wrapped in blue paper and hands it to Irene. ‘Samsung-themed wrapping paper,’ she says with a grin. ‘Happy birthday.’

‘Thanks. What is it?’

‘Well, open it and find out.’

She peels away the paper and tosses it in the trash and holds up the box in her hand. It’s a small toy box. Inside, behind the cellophane packaging, is a Funko Pop doll version of herself in her racing overalls, bugeyed and bigheaded and oddly terrifying. ‘Where did you get this?’ she asks, moderately amused and massively confused.

‘Found it on Amazon. Thought you’d find it funny.’

‘I didn’t even know they made these of me. Or of any driver.’

‘You should see the Seulgi one. It’s super cute. Speaking of which, what did she get you?’

Irene looks at her and is silent.

‘Oh,’ Yeri says. ‘Right. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

The silence is there again, claustral and cloistering and awkward. She puts the toy box on the bench and wipes her eyes and sighs. ‘Hey,’ Yeri says, ‘fancy doing something?’

‘Like what?’

‘Dunno. Going for a couple drinks, maybe? I dunno what else there is to do.’

‘Not really.’

‘C’mon. What happened to living your new life?’

‘That isn’t what I said. Or what I meant.’

‘So? Live a little.’

Irene thinks about it. Thinking, rather unfortunately: What else is there to do? Go home and sulk? Think about Brazil some more? So she says slowly, ‘Where do you have in mind?’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Depends on what you’re planning.’

‘Just a couple drinks. I’ll pick a random bar. It doesn’t matter where. That’s all I’m asking.’

‘Fine,’ Irene says with a sigh. ‘Whatever you say.’

It’s a place in uptown Gangnam and rather expensive and clearly the preferred place of many celebrities, because when they walk in nobody pays them any attention at all. No autographs or pictures taken from across the room or idle conversations, people saying: Hey, isn’t that Bae Irene? The F1 champ? I think it is.

Instead Yeri sits on the stool at the bar and orders two drinks and turns to Irene on the stool next to her with a smile. She’s dressed in a white polo shirt with the top two buttons undone and her hair loose down past her shoulders and Irene’s never quite seen her like this before, away from the racing overalls and the casual Samsung outfits in many a bar in many a city across the world. ‘So,’ she says, ‘what’s the verdict?’

‘On what?’

‘This place. You like it?’

Irene looks about. The lights are dim and murky and it smells of vodka and cigarettes and down at the far end beyond the bar a small corridor leads further into the building and it’s much darker over there and they’re playing techno music through the speakers and she can feel the bass under her feet. ‘It’s alright,’ she says with a shrug. ‘It’s just another bar.’

‘Oh, you go to many bars, do you?’

‘I don’t need to. They’re all the same.’

Yeri passes her a small square whiskey glass full of golden liquid and holds up her own in the narrow light. It’s a strangely pale blue neon that has her looking like a washedout comicbook character. She grins. ‘Cheers,’ she says.

‘What is it?’

‘Just bourbon. Drink up.’

She peers down into the bottom of the glass with a grimace. It smells like it might burn . The music playing on behind her. People coming and going into this darker room beyond all the eye’s reckoning. Briefly she thinks: What am I doing here? Then with a great deal of skepticism she tips the glass back and drinks a good quarter of it off and winces at the confirmation that it is indeed strong enough to burn the back of . And strong enough for her to know the room will be spinning in an hour and there’s nothing she can do about it.

‘Why did you bring me here?’ she says.

‘Why not? Don’t you like it? We can go elsewhere.’

‘No, I didn’t mean it like that.’

Yeri drinks and sets her glass down on the counter a little too loudly. ‘I thought you’d like to get everything off your mind for a night,’ she says. ‘Just forget about it all, like you said.’

‘That isn’t what I said.’

‘Yeah, but it’s what you meant.’

‘Is it?’

‘Sure. You just tend to speak in riddles a lot of the time. It can get a bit frustrating. But don’t worry, I know what you mean. When you say: I want to find myself. What you really mean is: I wanna get blackout drunk and have Yeri carry me home and forget about Seulgi and the racing for a night. Am I right, or am I right?’

Irene looks at her. Then without responding she picks up her glass and drinks another quarter of the bourbon and wipes and slams it back down.

‘See?’ Yeri says, laughing the sort of laugh that reeks of carefully planned peer pressure.

‘Why does nobody recognise us?’ Irene asks.

‘I’m sure they do, but nobody cares. You get a lot of celebrities in here. Maybe no one as popular as you, but still. I don’t think you’ll get many people asking for autographs tonight. And besides, people tend to be too drunk to care about that sort of thing, unless you’re trying to pick up girls, I suppose.’

‘I’m not.’

‘C’mon.’

‘I’ve got a girlfriend,’ Irene says flatly.

‘Yeah, well, not anymore.’

‘I said we’re on a break.’

‘Fair play,’ Yeri says, and holds up her glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

‘What do they say instead of cheers in Singapore?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not from Singapore.’

‘Well,’ Yeri mumbles. ‘Cheers anyway.’

‘I’m only having one,’ Irene says, and it isn’t until she’s halfway through her third that she looks down into her glass and closes one eye in a squint and says, ‘Holy , what am I doing?’

‘Having fun. You should do it more often.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Just past eight. Why?’

‘Just asking.’

Yeri looks at her. In her hand is the fourth of her drinks for the night and almost certainly not the last. ‘We should go somewhere else,’ she says. And before Irene can reply she adds: ‘We’re going somewhere else.’

‘Where?’

‘To a club.’

‘What? No—’

‘Yes we are. It’ll be fun.’

‘Where?’

‘There’s a place I know called Mint. It’s, like, ten minutes down the street from here. Surely you’ve heard of it.’

Irene shrugs.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Damn,’ Yeri says. ‘Maybe your whole thing about needing a life was kinda right. No offence, of course. And not that clubbing is, like, the only thing in life. But…yeah.’

‘Have you been before?’

‘Loads. It’s pretty fun. And you’ll find more often than not that people either don’t recognise you or just don’t care. It’s usually very dark. We’re going.’

Irene glances down into the bottom of her glass again. As if it might speak to her or reveal some more clarifying truth, but instead it’s just a dim and murky brown that smells like paintstripper. With a sigh and no thoughts of Seulgi at all she says, ‘Sure. Whatever you say.’

‘Great. I just need to use the bathroom.’

‘Is it open already?’

‘Yeah. Well, it will be by the time we've walked there. Half eight till four. Why?’

‘Just wondering. I don’t…you know. Go clubbing often. I don’t remember this stuff.’

‘Getting too old.’

‘Very funny.’

‘I’ll be right back,’ Yeri says. When she’s gone Irene studies the rest of the room very slowly. Everything seems to be moving just a little bit more than it realistically should. Even the tables are wobbling. Her breath smells of whiskey and the lights are too bright and her hands too feathery and when she hiccups it smells of bourbon and she’s almost giggling at that. Thinking: Here goes. The point of no return. Ten or so minutes later Yeri stumbles back up to the bar and finishes the last of her drink and wipes with a smile.

‘You were gone long,’ Irene says.

‘I had to take a call.’

‘Who from?’

‘Just a friend. You ready?’

‘Sure,’ Irene says. ‘Lead the way.’

The ten minutes down the street seems almost an absurdity to Irene, like a cruel lie concocted by Yeri to taunt her, drunk as she is, an infinite loop of streetlights and the cold as they wobble arm in arm to this strange new world of Yeri’s. The sign hanging outside says MINT NIGHTCLUB in neon green font. Irene never even notices it. One minute they’re outside and the next by the bar in the main room and the music is too loud and she can barely hear herself think. Yeri passes her a bottle of something blue and ugly and leans over and says equally loud in her ear, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Uh, drunk.’

‘Good. Happy birthday. Glad you’re having fun.’

‘I never said I was having fun.’

‘Are you having fun?’

Irene looks at her and hiccups and giggles and says, ‘Yeah, I’m having fun.’

‘Cheers.’

She clinks her unknown drink against Yeri’s and finishes half of it in two mouthfuls with a wince. It tastes fruity and tart and very sweet and actually quite nice. Standing there and leaning on the bar she takes a moment to survey her surroundings. Everything is too dark. She says, ‘Everything’s too dark.’

‘I know. Maybe that’s why nobody ever recognises me.’

‘Is this place a…’

‘A what?’

‘You know.’

‘Is it what?’

‘Is it a gay club?’

‘Yeah,’ Yeri says nonchalantly. ‘Why?’

‘No reason. Just asking. It’s just quite…gay.’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘Why did you bring me here?’

Yeri shrugs again and drinks and smiles at the bartender. ‘They’re more fun,’ she says. ‘Always more fun. You wanna go dance or something?’

‘I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I can even stand up anymore.’

‘That’s a good thing.’

‘Is it?’

‘Dunno. Maybe. C’mon.’

Maybe it’s five minutes or three hours. She’s on the dancefloor with Yeri and smiling into the dark and the flickerlights and the drinks tumble and burns and she’s sweaty but it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t think much at all but what she does think, quite consistently, is: I like this. This is really fun. I could get used to this.

It’s sometime later, arrayed in a flare of neon green, drunk on the bassline and drunk on the whiskey and the vodka sodas, that Yeri leans closer and says, ‘Wanna go get some air or something? I need a breather.’

‘Sure. I’m just going to go get another drink. I’ll meet you out there.’

‘Okay,’ Yeri says. Irene blinks. She blinks again and she’s at the bar and her card is in her hand and she’s grinning like an idiot at the woman behind the bar and saying, ‘Thank you,’ and drinking. Sweet and fruity and tasty. Nobody seems to recognise her at all. She nudges her way through a host of people with a polite Excuse Me and toward the smoking area and pushes the door open. It’s much colder outside, cold enough that she can feel the sweat sticky on her forehead and down her back and how awful it feels even as wasted as she is. Every step feels like a heavy burden. Navigating the tables and the canopy she acts in the way people do when pretending to be sober and fails just as spectacularly, stumbling about and smiling at nothing. Yeri’s over by one of the tables at the back, sat with her legs folded talking to two very attractive women both smoking and laughing at something she’s saying. She sees Irene wobbling over and says something to them and they look at her as if they’ve seen some sort of mythological creature or something.

‘Hey,’ Yeri says, guiding Irene down on the bench.

‘Hi.’

‘I’d like you to meet my friends. New friends.’

She tells Irene their names but Irene isn’t listening. Only sniffing the rancid odour of the cigarette smoke and the whiskey on her own breath and smiling dumbly at them. They both look about twenty or twenty-one. The one closest to Yeri is wearing a stripy lightweight coat and a black cap with the logo of the New York Yankees printed onto the front and the other one, stood just in front of Irene and smiling shyly at her, is wearing a somewhat inappropriate black strapless dress. Irene says, ‘You must be cold.’

‘I’m okay,’ she says back, still smiling. ‘Are you a Formula 1 driver?’

‘What?’

‘Your friend said you drove in Formula 1.’

She looks at Yeri and Yeri gives her a knowing glance and shrugs. ‘Uh, yeah,’ Irene says. ‘I drove in Formula 1. Still do, actually.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. You can find me on Google if you want.’

She closes her eyes and tries to regain some sense of time or space or logic or anything coherent about the world at all and realises two minutes later she’s been sitting there nodding at whatever the girl in the strapless dress is saying and Yeri is nowhere to be seen. She nods. Says: Yes. Cool. Then she murmurs, ‘Sorry. I’m really sorry, but where did my friend go?’

‘Inside. To get a drink. Do you want a cigarette?’

‘I don’t smoke, sorry.’

‘That’s cool. So, what’s it like, being a Formula 1 driver?’

‘Fast,’ Irene mumbles. She looks for the stripyjacket Yankees girl but she’s gone, too, back inside with Yeri.

‘I’ve always though Formula 1 was the coolest job in the world.’

‘It’s got its ups and downs.’

‘I bet you get so many people coming up to you all the time. I can’t imagine what it’s like.’ She flicks a thin spear of ash from the tip of her cigarette and blows out and stands crossing her legs in front of Irene. Irene just stares at her. Dancing about in her doublevision. She’s very pretty. That much is obvious even as drunk as she is. She tries to shake it away and it only serves to make her want to throw up.

‘You’re really attractive,’ the girl in the black dress says, blunt and obvious about it. She looks at Irene and Irene looks at her back and the glimmer in her eyes says everything and Irene knows it and even drunk she can tell and eventually, when the girl’s finished her cigarette and she’s still standing there expectantly, waiting for Irene to make the first move, Irene pulls herself to her feet and says, ‘I’m really sorry, but I’ve got a girlfriend.’

‘What?’

‘I’m taken. I’ve got—’ a hiccup. Then, finishing: ‘Pardon me. I’ve got a girlfriend. Sorry. You’re very nice, I’m sure, but I can’t.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Goodbye,’ Irene says, and stumbles off back into the wilting claustrophobia of the club. It takes her ten minutes to find the bar. Ten more to realise there are two bars and she’s at the wrong one and only a good deal later does she find Yeri, slouched in one of the little quiet booths near the upstairs bar, drink on the table in front of her. She takes one look at Irene and says, ‘Where the have you been?’

‘Outside.’

‘I rang you, like, six times.’

‘I didn’t— pardon me. I didn’t hear. What time is it?’

Yeri checks her phone and says, ‘Just gone two. What happened to that girl? Did she try coming onto you?’

‘Yeah. Why did you tell them I was a Formula 1 driver?’

‘Well, because you are.’

‘Yeah, but— pardon me. But that’s stupid. And you’re a Formula 1 driver too.’

‘I know,’ Yeri says with a grin. ‘You should’ve seen her face when I showed her downstairs when we were grabbing a drink.’

‘Whose face?’

‘That girl in the fancy jacket.’

‘Where is she?’

Yeri shrugs, an air of nonchalance and slightly of insobriety. ‘Dunno,’ she says. ‘Somewhere. I’m not really too bothered. Good kisser, though. You wanna go home yet?’

‘Sure. How can you drink so much and not— pardon me. And not die?’

‘Practice, I guess. C’mon, we’ll go.’

It isn’t until they’re pulling up along the kerb outside Irene’s apartment building and up the cold that Yeri says, ‘You really drank a lot tonight.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Can you walk on your own?’

‘Not really.’

‘Do you need me to help you inside?’

‘Uh— sorry. Pardon me. I mean, yeah. I think so.’

‘Hey,’ Yeri says. She stands about ten feet away and turns to Irene and says, ‘Look at me. Irene. Hey, Irene.’

‘What?’

‘Try walking to where I am right now. One foot in front of the other.’

Slowly, she does. It is the world's most difficult task. Four world championships has nothing on the enormity of this dangerous and terrifying ten-foot walk. Standing there and navigating this maze of confusion in which all realistic and logical thought is thrown out of the window in pursuit of the desire to appear, at once, sober. She gets three steps into this intrepid endeavor and decides it's futile and stupid and throws up her hands in defeat.

‘Jesus,’ Yeri says, laughing, ‘you are ed.’

‘Uh huh. But I had fun, though. That’s what counts, right?’

‘I guess it is.’

‘I didn’t think about Seulgi or F1 or winning or losing or anything all night. Maybe I need to get drunk more often.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Or maybe just realise that— pardon me. That there are things out there in the world beyond just— pardon me. Beyond just romance and racing. Maybe I needed that all along. Yeri.’

‘What?’ Yeri says. Irene takes a long time to reply. Stood there on the kerb trying to balance herself, like some lunatic carnival performer on an invisible tightrope. ‘Thank you,’ she mumbles, still obscenely and offensively drunk. ‘I mean it. Tonight was great. I’m glad I said yes.’

‘So am I. It was fun. We should do it again sometime.’

‘Maybe soon. Maybe not for a while. I’m going to have— pardon me. The world’s biggest hangover.’

‘Yeah, you and me both. But at least we had a good time.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

‘I really love you. I'm so glad you're my teammate. You're a great friend, Yeri.’

‘So this is what Seulgi was warning me about.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ Yeri says with a little giggle. ‘You wanna go to bed now?’

Irene nods a little too enthusiastically and closes her eyes. She feels Yeri hoist her arm around her shoulder and help her up the stairs to the front doors like a wounded prisoner of war and stop outside and giggle at something. ‘What?’ Irene says. She opens her eyes and the answer is there for her. Just outside the doorway is a terribly ruined and unimpressive layer cake and three flaccid and equally unimpressive balloons and a giant piece of card, smudged over in icing sugar and buttercream, that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEST DRIVER in poorly scrawled red handwriting.

‘Well,’ Yeri says. ‘Is this who I think it is?’

‘I don't know. It must be.’

‘Guess she didn’t forget.’

‘Guess not,’ Irene mumbles, grinning like an idiot. When Yeri tucks her into bed half an hour later and reminds her there’s an entire pitcher of water on her bedside table and a vomit bucket next to her bed and then turns out the lights and says goodnight, she’s still grinning like an idiot.