So finding myself suddenly sitting in this caff, chatting with a fantastic-looking girl, felt really strange. For the first time in months I wasn’t some sort of freak. I was just a young guy getting to know a girl, like people do. I forgot my tatty clothes and matted hair and the ache in my gut. I forgot about cold, hard doorways and cold, hard eyes and the fact that I couldn’t even invite her to see a movie. I was a guy, she was a girl and I might be falling in love. That was all I knew. All I wanted to know. I didn’t even notice we’d left the caff till I found myself sitting on a wall in weak sunshine, holding her hand while some old geezer passing by frowned at us like we were committing a crime or something. It was the start of a brilliant time for me, and all I can say is it’s a good job we can’t see into the future.

So we’re sitting on this wall and she says, ‘Let’s get chips and eat them by the water.’ It’s a warm day for February at that, but there’s one snag. ‘I got no dosh,’ I tell her.

‘I have.’

‘Yeah, but it’s gotta last. It’s slim pickings, tapping.’

‘I got plenty,’ she says.

‘You won’t have for long if you broadcast it like that.’ I grin. ‘How d’you know I won’t mug you for it?’

‘Try it,’ she says. ‘You’ll mebbe get something you didn’t bargain for.’

She bought chips and we sat by the water. I said, ‘What you dossing for if you got dosh – you could get a place.

She shrugged. ‘Like you said, it’s gotta last. And anyway, I’m with you now. I don’t need a place.’

This sounded reasonable as well as flattering and I accepted it. I should’ve pushed a bit harder but I was well in love by this time and you don’t, do you?

We ate and talked. She was terminally curious about what she called The Scene – she meant life on the street. She asked about a million questions and I did my best to answer them. I had no choice, since I’d passed myself off to her as an old hand. To be perfectly honest I was beginning to regret having lied – not because of the questions, but because of love, I suppose – which is ironic considering what happened later, but this was now.