Jake smiled. “She sounds . . . terrifying. And amazing, obviously,” he added hastily, horrified at how he was doing.

Lissa smiled again. “Oh God,” she said, and swallowed. “Okay. She is both of those things.”

She wondered, suddenly, why she hadn’t confided more in her mum. Would she even have needed to come here? Would her mum have been disappointed?

She thought of Cormac too, and his mother, fussing about him. It was odd, sometimes, just a little, the strange things they had in common.

“Well then,” said Jake after a long pause, trying to get her attention. “Where shall we start? I really need to win you a large soft toy.”

“I don’t need one of those.”

“You don’t need one,” said Jake, who had, truth be told, been practicing, “but I think you should have one. To make up for all the ones you missed when you were a child.”

And he bought her a large candy floss, which immediately got stuck in her hair and was just as sticky and ridiculous a concept of foodstuff as Lissa remembered from nearly half a lifetime ago and was messing up her lipstick, but she found she didn’t care and they both laughed. She wondered briefly if she didn’t care because she was so relaxed or because she genuinely wasn’t that into the guy she was with, but soon she told herself to stop bothering and just enjoy herself. And she did.

They passed Ramsay and Zoe with their clutch of children, the two little boys wearing identical Spider-Man costumes, holding hands, and looking absolutely terrified.

“What about the ghost train?” Zoe was saying, and the taller of the small children said, “We absolutely do not want to meet any more ghosts, Nanny Seven,” and the littler was shaking his head in terror, and Zoe said, “What do you mean ‘more ghosts’?” rather nervously, and Patrick and Hari just looked at each other.

“Hello, you two,” said Zoe, and Lissa felt odd to hear them referred to as a couple.

“Hello,” said Lissa, smiling.

“Lollipops!” hollered Patrick. “You’re the lady with all the lollipops. And jabs. And lollipops.”

He narrowed his eyes as if trying to work out whether seeing her was a good or bad thing.

“I don’t have any lollipops. Or jabs,” said Lissa reassuringly. “Are you having a good time at the fair?”

Patrick and Hari shook their heads firmly.

“They won’t go on anything,” said Zoe in despair. “They think this entire fair is a plot to kill them.”

“Mary said so!” said Patrick.

“Oh, Mary,” said Ramsay, holding the girl. “Well, at least it’s cheap.”

Zoe agreed vigorously.

“Ah disnae want to die,” said the tiniest of the children.

“You’re not going to die!”