‘Are you sure it’s mine?’ It’s the shittiest thing to say – Brad Pitt dumping Jennifer Aniston level of shittiness.

‘Of course it’s yours. That’s mean; I’ve never been with anyone else. Can I come in? I’m bursting for a wee because there wasn’t a loo on the train.’

I can’t remember her name, but as she squeezes into the hall, I remember the rest: Glastonbury. How she danced so clumsily that she was impossible to miss; how we’d snogged to The Killers, then shagged in my tent. How I wondered if it was her first time, so I’d been cautious, which made everything even more intense: rain pinging against the polyester tent, the smell of weed, other people’s voices so close, the dried mud on her skin and mine.

And now I’m remembering the second night, when she took something that freaked her out. I sat with her in the first-aid tent and missed all the acts and lost a night’s money. I was more pissed off with myself than with her, because even though I knew she wasn’t my responsibility, I couldn’t let her deal with that shit alone.

But once I knew she would be OK, I didn’t want to know. On the Sunday, I hid from her when she came back to the contractors’ area to say goodbye. Never expected to see her again.

But here she is. No hiding from her, or from the round belly straining the buttons on her Santa-red winter coat.

I make tea while she uses the bathroom, hoping my filthy flatmates flushed the toilet, it’s hit-or-miss here. What the hell is her name? Anneka? Andrea?

She reappears, her body still skinny, like she’s got a bowling ball up her jumper.

‘How did you find me?’ I ask, handing over the least cracked tea mug I could find.

‘Internet,’ she says. What else did she find? ‘So, before you say anything, I’m keeping it. Her.’

Her. Ten minutes ago all I had to worry about was the court case, and now I’m gonna be a dad. Have a daughter.

‘How long have you known?’

‘Since I went back to sixth form. When I put my school skirt on again and the button wouldn’t do up, that was when I stopped pretending.’

School skirt. Fuck. At the festival there’d been no obvious difference between us, but now the four-year gap is a lifetime. She’s too young. And me? I’ll never be old enough for this.

‘What do your parents say?’

She sighs. ‘They’re not over the moon. They keep saying I’m immature, mentally and physically. They think they know what’s best for me, but they don’t, they really don’t.’

I think of my mum. She was only a few years older than this girl when she died having me. When I got stuck and they had to operate, and I made it and she didn’t, and I took the life of the person who gave me mine.

Fucking hell.

The girl peers into her mug as though something could dive out of the brown liquid and bite her.