I closed my eyes and drew slow breaths through my nostrils, letting my head flood with the cocoa-butter smell of her hair, letting it wash away the racket of thought. I felt as nervous and as contented as it’s possible to be at the exact same time.

She snuggled her elbows and knees into herself as if we were wrapped up in a duvet, and for a few perfect minutes we sat in silence, just the distant wash of tyres against soaked tarmac occasionally rising over the patter of the rain.

‘We should get out of town sometime,’ she said. ‘Just drop everything and go.’

‘You hate it here that much?’

‘I don’t hate it. But I know there’s more. You’ll get out, Ollie. Dunno about me so much.’

‘What’s the dream?’ I whispered, daring to put my arms round her.

‘Not working in a newsagent’s. Having a life that’s my own. Fuck, just being somewhere where nobody thinks they know me.’

I squeezed with my arms and she pressed the warmth of her frame closer into me.

‘Maybe we’ll run away together one day,’ she said with a snigger. ‘Somewhere by the sea.’

Automatically, I pictured the front at Brighton, standing at the railings on Madeira Drive, looking out to those minuscule wind-farm blades idling on the horizon, like I’d done so many times with Aunty Kaye. For once, the thought didn’t make me sad at all.

‘Maybe we could have a little bar,’ she said. ‘I’d run the place and you could play the piano every night. Imagine that.’

I grinned. I really could imagine it. ‘How awesome would that be?’

She let her laughter fade. ‘This place isn’t so bad. It all looks sort of interesting from up here.’

The night had set in, the estate below reduced to an illuminated grid converging into darkness.

‘Do you ever think about all the sex that must be going on out there?’ she asked.

‘Do you?’

‘Of course. Like proper dirty sex. Everyone’s so bored, what else would they all be doing?’

If she could feel my heart hammering against her spine, she didn’t let on. ‘You reckon people have better sex on council estates?’

‘They must do. It’s the one thing they’ve got that no one can take away.’