Everyone always knows what they're doing," he says abruptly, still not looking up from his hands, the little plastic pot and the old tattoo and the new white dressing on his left wrist. "You know what you're doing, you got your work and your friends and everything and miserable headfucky little teenage girly boys think you're amazing and, I don't know, you might've saved my life, who knows? I might be dead if it weren't for you and Olly but people can't keep looking after me all the time cos that ain't healthy neither, that's just as bad as people not giving a fuck at all. And, like... I'm trying to sort my head out and be a proper grown-up and get my degree and go to work and look after them kids and make sure my dad ain't kicking my sister round the house like a football but it's just so hard all the time, and I know I ain't got no right to complain cos that's just life, ain't it? Everyone's the same, least I ain't got money worries or nothing. I just don't know what I'm doing, everything's too hard. I can try and try forever but I can't be good enough for no one so what the fuck's the point?

There arepeople everywhere. Lindsay wants to be sick, it's like he canfeelall theireyes on him, but he does it anyway and when he finally moves away agood minute later Valentine seems to have turned from himself into a sillybashful schoolgirl, blushing and smiling and not quite looking up."Oh," he says, like that explains everything."Yeah.""Thank you.""That's a shit thing to say when somebody's just ripped all hisprinciples in half to make you feel better.""Thank you very much?""You're welcome.