‘Let me talk to your mum about a haircut. See if I can persuade her it’s safe.’

Casey nods. ‘Good luck with that. I should be back in fifteen minutes.’

I buy a coffee and take it into the courtyard, as my wise daughter suggested, but the humming is louder now she’s gone. Tinnitus is an occupational hazard when you work the festivals. Nowadays they take it seriously, but the damage was done when I was fifteen, working on food stalls for free burgers and cash in hand.

The droning always gets louder when everything else is still. Now it’s vibrating like . . . a ship’s engine or a big amp.

No. It’s the buzz of clippers. And I understand instantly what the memory is and why it’s been triggered.

But I don’t have to give in to it. I try to think about my life now, not my life then. Lazy weekends with my friends. Great days when the lads at work are listening to me. But the noise keeps intensifying. Fucking hell.

I close my eyes. All right then, bring it on.

‘Turn and face the camera, Daz, that’s it. No, don’t smile. Think about when Mufasa dies in The Lion King. That’s right. Hold it – OK. You can smile again.’

Buzz.

The clippers vibrate in his hand and the blades dart up and down like rat’s teeth. Nadia holds up the camera, but doesn’t look at me.

‘Dad, it’s going to cut me.’

‘I promise it won’t – that’s what the guard is for. Look, I’m doing mine first.’

He locks eyes with his own reflection in the mirror. The vibration deepens when the machine touches the hair above his forehead and tiny black shavings rain down, settling on the chequerboard kitchen floor.

We’ll be finding hair in our sandwiches for weeks; it goes everywhere.

There’s no blood and he’s still grinning. It almost suits him, but he doesn’t have much hair anyway. I’ve got loads.

‘Your turn, Dazzler.’

He moves the clippers towards the back of my neck and, with his other hand, pushes my head gently forward. Now I feel the noise in my skull. But it doesn’t hurt, it tickles and his hand is warm against my head, pushing back the hair in lines, like he’s mowing a lawn.

‘You’ll be bang on trend. All the tough guys have shaved heads. Bruce Willis. Grant Mitchell. And now we’re done.’

I see in his eyes how bad I must look. Then he grins. ‘You’ve been very brave, Daz. Take another piccy, Nadia.’

‘Can I smile this time, Dad?’

‘Let’s do two, shall we? One sad, one happy.’

Somewhere I’ve still got a newspaper clipping featuring the ‘sad’ photo. I’ll never forget how shocking it was when I didn’t recognize the strange boy in the mirror.

The buzzing in my ears fades and I’m back, here in this sunny courtyard. My coffee’s gone cold. I check my watch. Casey should be back soon, and then we’ll go to her classroom. This morning has been a rollercoaster but, somehow, we’ve turned it around, together.