Her friends hooted with laughter at my words and the boy broke into a grin. ‘I like you,’ he said, making a low, sweeping bow. ‘Yeah, I think I like you. All right, where you going?’ I pointed to the picture-house entrance. It was surrounded by the other Teddies like a guard. He started leading me towards it. ‘Right, you sods, out the way. Lady coming through.’ He pulled a few out of my path and I made it to the doorway to stare at the poster and Lorelei’s image, working things out. From inside the cinema, there was a chaos of shouting – it looked like the management were trying, and failing, to maintain order while the Teddies were milling around, throwing drinks and food from the kiosk, juggling with bottles of milk. A man in a suit kept shouting that he had called the police. I could hear the film playing; it must have been the scene in which the Archangel arrives – there were gunshots and explosions, cheers from the auditorium. ‘This is our Liberation Day,’ chuckled Alfie.

There were dissidents in our society. There were the intellectuals who opposed the regime, citing long-dead philosophers – they usually got one warning before they were shipped off to be re-educated, their homes requisitioned and their families moved into the worst houses, without running water. And there was an underground of those who took more direct action: digging escape tunnels under the wall, trying to organize trades unions or holding up half-hearted banners like the couple in Liberation Square. But it hadn’t occurred to me that there were some who were open about their rebellion. They stood their ground with their clothes and their motorbikes, instead of political theories and clandestine meetings. If there was a vanguard of defiance, here they were.

I became aware of a ripple of movement outside. A rising of voices to match those within the building. A wave of noise – the Teddies shouting to one another, kicking their motorbikes into life. Alfie dropped his hand from my back and stared at the end of the street, where a commotion was flying towards us through the smog. Scores of policemen were rushing down, batons out, swiping left and right, knocking many of the boys to the floor. Their girlfriends screamed.