‘Not the song,’ I said, ‘but the point of it. It’s all crap. We get to decide. It’s our decision.’ I was talking fast, tripping over my words. ‘It doesn’t have to be in the past. We can choose. We can say how those were the days of our lives, how those were the best days, and how that’s all behind us. Or we can say that our best days are still ahead. Whichever one we choose, we’ll prove ourselves right. It’s our decision. You understand what I mean?’

‘Sort of, I guess.’

‘It sounded more profound in my head.’

Sophia grinned. ‘For a piece of three-in-the-morning philosophy from a man wearing just his socks, it’s profound enough.’

‘We don’t have much time,’ I said as much to myself as to her.

She stood side-on to me, nestling her head against my neck with her arms round me. The wind blasted down the track and bit into us, my battered hand throbbed with every beat of my heart, yet nowhere in the world could I have felt more comfortable.

‘What we gonna do?’ she whispered.

‘You think I’m kidding, don’t you?’

Her hand slipped under my T-shirt and stroked my back. ‘If you say we’re getting out, I believe you.’

‘We’re doing it,’ I told her. ‘This is happening.’

She smiled. Her lips landed on mine. ‘If we do it, we do it properly. We make them pay for what they’ve done.’

‘Can we meet tomorrow?’ I asked her. ‘When you’re done at work?’

‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.

I made her promise that she’d lay low, vary her routes to and from work and run at the first hint of trouble. And I made a promise to her that I’d keep myself away from harm as well.

It was getting on for four in the morning by the time I made it home. I wasn’t tired at all, but for once it wasn’t fear keeping me awake, it was excitement too. I was going to save myself, and I was going to save her.

I let myself in by the side gate, slipping in through the back door into the kitchen to grab a bag of frozen peas for my hand before stepping outside again. I walked laps of the garden, sitting in Gramps’s fraying deckchair for a smoke every half-hour. With daylight bleeding into the sky, I plotted our escape.

I thought up acts of disruption that we could carry out as our parting shot: burn a classroom or two like we’d discussed perhaps; maybe plant something incriminating on our enemies and put a call in to the police. A final act of bravado before we’d disappear and never look back.