I should say something else. Something to show how much she’s meant to me these last weeks. I can’t expect her to forgive me for lying. But I wouldn’t even be thinking about trying again with Casey and Angelica if Gemma hadn’t been around, showing how kindness can make everything better.

‘You’ve changed me, Gemma,’ I say.

‘I haven’t done anything.’

‘You did it by being you. Sorry, I sound like a cheesy song, but whatever happens next, you made me think I could be good. Better than I really am.’

She smiles and I want to kiss her so badly, but it’s the wrong time. As she stands up, I realize there will never be a right time. ‘Can I drop you and Bear back home?’

‘I’ll walk to College Green, get a cab from there. I need some air.’

‘OK. If you’re sure.’

‘Yeah. So, say goodbye to Bear, otherwise he won’t come with me.’

I crouch down and touch his hot, hairy shoulders and let him lick my chin. I’m as messy and dishevelled as he is. ‘See you around, mate.’

When I straighten up there’s a moment when we could embrace, Gemma and me, but we don’t take it. Like everything between us, the timing is all wrong.

It’s only after she goes that I remember I’ve got nowhere to sleep tonight.

I consider going back to camp in Castle Park – no. Or sneaking into the car park to kip in the jeep. No, I can’t risk seeing Angelica until I’ve worked out what I have to say.

If I have anything to say.

I cross the bridge and check into the Travellers Rest. It’s your standard budget hotel, but at least it’s clean, which is more than can be said for me. I undress in the shower, then turn on the water, scrubbing my body and my T-shirt and pants and shorts until all the mud has washed away. Finally, I try to dry my clothes with the feeble hotel hairdryer.

I think about the stuff I told Gemma this evening: stuff I’ve never told anyone before.

Back when Dad was first arrested and I went into foster care, plenty of grown-ups tried to talk to me. I resisted everything my foster parents stood for: Dad and I had never done ‘normal’, and I wasn’t about to start. But eventually the doggedness of family life wore me down. No matter how much I played up, the adults caring for me stayed calm and kind. It wasn’t just me: their own children’s bad moods were forgiven swiftly too, and afterwards there’d be toast and TV to make you forget the fury.

Normal was so predictable, so boring. And so nice.

None of it is your fault, they’d say. It’s your father who exploited people, including you. They told me my father wasn’t Robin Hood, or Del Boy, he was a con man. But I couldn’t – wouldn’t – turn against the person I hero-worshipped. I said that if they wanted to lock him up, they should lock me up too, because we were united: the Lennoxes against the universe.