‘I’m in love,’ I announced to my mother, refusing to elaborate.

I had a babysitting job in the next town over, something I’d acquired in an effort to overthrow my parents. The Australian collected me each night in my father’s filthy car and I endured five-minute journeys that felt like actual physical suffering. I baffled myself with the blandness of my own conversation. I inquired about the length of the train trips he had taken around Europe. Did he have a normal cabin or a night cabin? Did they serve food on board? Was it fast?

My friends and I had idle thoughts that we should be elsewhere – at the small, mean local summer camps, perhaps, improving ourselves – but we dismissed them. If feeling energetic, we entertained the idea of tennis – but only the idea of it. We ran and scattered, ran and scattered. We rehearsed, again and again, the stories of the missing girls. We sketched love hearts on our skin with sun cream. We were always projecting futures: we were dropping out of school, we were going to live in caravans, raise our children collectively with few rules. On my fourteenth birthday, we went to the one pub that allowed us in and leaned across the pool table like we were working for tips.

One night, collecting me, the Australian caught sight of my friends and I could see him appraising their outfits and sly, knowing gaits.

‘Those girls will get you into trouble,’ he said.

I shrugged like I couldn’t wait.

(He was right. In three years, at exam-time, I would be dragged into an airless room, papers would be flung at me, and a nun would say, Well, things aren’t looking so amusing now, are they? It’s a shame, the nun would say, because when you came into this school we thought you were going to do great things. Now, we would be surprised if you do anything – anything at all. And, not for the last time in my life, I would curse myself for laughing when nothing was funny, and staying still when I should have been moving, and moving when I should have been staying still.)

If my parents went out, he was instructed to call to the main house to check on me. They were meant to be brief visits but time always got away from us; two people aware they were doing something wrong but not knowing how to name it. One evening, I begged him to stay and watch The Exorcist. As an incentive, I offered microwave pizza.

‘Are you old enough?’ he asked, referring to the film.

‘Yes,’ I said, disgusted.

The film was dark, but I thought it would be darker, more twisted. It was just priests, really – priests in unusual circumstances.

He yawned and leaned back on the leather couch, revealing a large scar running from the top of his trousers to his belly-button, healed but still red and angry- looking. I glanced and he pulled down his T-shirt. ‘What are you scared of?’ he asked me.