I DON’T EVEN really know where I first met Eli. She was just one of those people I saw at parties and gigs and bars. I liked her and I didn’t care that she was a junkie; most people I knew at that time were junkies or at least partway there, myself included. Besides, I’d always had a soft spot for that kind of woman.

I was living pretty close to the bone that summer, more or less at the start of a losing streak that would go on to last another decade. I lived behind a shop in Brunswick Street and washed dishes in a Greek restaurant. I stayed up late, drank all the time and used dope when I could. At night I crouched in my windy room and carved hieroglyphs into my arms with broken glass, messages to myself, reminders of something or other – my own fucking stupidity perhaps. It wasn’t the worst of times for me; they were yet to come.