We talked and talked after that. Or rather, Michael asked questions and I talked. I got enthusiastic about Marvel and manga comics, showed him the Celtic cross tattoo I’d made on my wrist with a needle and black ink and told him about my cancer. Michael learned all about my treatment and my mother and what life had been like growing up.

I told Michael things I hadn’t even told my closest friends – stuff about my mom using the San Francisco free-love no-rules culture to justify being a lousy parent, and how unsuitable her life was for children. How if it hadn’t been for Dee, we would have been taken away from her.

‘My mom wasn’t even up-to-date,’ I said. ‘All that hippy stuff passed through years before Dee and I were born. She clung on to it for dear life.’

I went into huge detail about my cancer too. How embarrassing the treatment was for a teenager just getting to know her body. Having things stuck here and there, being wheeled around without underwear on. So bad. And then having all my hair falling out.

‘The tumour was so big they had to cut it in half to get it out,’ I told him. ‘Do you know what helped me heal?’

‘What?’ Michael asked, dark eyes big and beautiful and fascinated.

‘You, Crimson and Big Dreams.’ I looked at my hands, feeling awkward. ‘You got me through some really bad times. Without your music, I honestly don’t think I would have got through the treatment. You gave me a reason to live.’

‘We touched something pretty deep when we made that album,’ said Michael. ‘It was special, that one. And it takes a special person to feel it too.’

I grinned.

Michael encouraged me to talk so much about myself that night, while he sat and listened. As I talked, he touched and twisted the leather bracelets on my arm and the chunky silver chains around my neck.

‘You’re quite a girl,’ he said. ‘You’ve really been through it. We’ve had a hard life, the pair of us. Harder than most.’

My eyes widened. ‘Did you get sick too when you were younger?’

‘No. But I had a bad time growing up.’

‘Really?’ I was fascinated.

Michael nodded. ‘My dad was a vicious bastard. Talked with his fists.’ He pulled up his black jeans and showed me a long, red scar running over his knee and down his calf. ‘I saw the bone poking out of that, once upon a time. But he made me fearless, the old sod. When someone that big pushes you around, you’re not afraid of anyone.’

‘Your mother—’

‘Died, God rest her soul. When I was two. I don’t remember her. Probably better that way.’