We dance and we dance, song after song; there’s a circle forming around us – admiring us. We’re grinning in each other’s faces; I’m basking in Salvi’s reflected gaze. I feel free, freer than I ever have. I begin to feel a little bit beautiful. Just a little bit.

Salvi pulls me to the side of the dancefloor. We flag down and demolish another cocktail each then it’s back into the arena again. Spinning and laughing. The band slows it down – they’re playing an oldie – an eighties oldie. It’s ‘The Long Hot Summer’ by The Style Council, when Paul Weller left Mod for Soul. It has always reminded me of teenage years, when long hot summers were to be endured, but now, now … Salvi pulls me towards him and I am the girl in hot pink in the window. I am one of the joyous, beautiful sinners. He holds me in his arms and I lean into his neck.

Suddenly his thumb comes from behind my head and towards my face like a weapon, and I wince. What is he doing? Is he going to wipe off my make-up? Expose my cheek and the real me that lies beneath? Just when I was feeling so amazing.

‘Hey,’ he says gently. He doesn’t wipe anything off my cheek. He tenderly wipes just below my left eye, with a light yet firm touch. ‘Your eye make-up is smudged,’ he says. ‘You’re clearly having too much fun.’

‘I really am,’ I reply.

His grass-green eyes hold mine. I’m still in his arms, his face close to mine. I am spellbound. ‘Can I take you home?’

Something is happening to me, when for all those years it hasn’t because I have pushed the world away. Kept it locked outside. Kept all the light away. If I let it in, will Salvi notice the dark shadows of my soul? The black spots deep inside me as indelible and as un-scrubbable as my birthmark?

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, you can take me home.’

‘Fantastic,’ he whispers into my ear. ‘That’s so fantastic.’ I gaze at him. His eyes are like jewels in a rock warmed by the sun, his mouth an open-ended promise. The man is a complete and utter miracle. ‘Let’s go,’ he says.

I am drunk, so bloody drunk – just the right side of staggering blindly about, bumping into people. I let Salvi lead me off the dancefloor and pull me through the dancing throng. Our waitress, from earlier – a sliver of black and white and blonde – is standing at the edge of the dancefloor and looks at us with curiosity. A look that says I am punching, that I had got my proverbial coat and pulled. I smile at her – conciliatory, patronizing – when do I ever get the chance to throw a patronizing glance at a pretty blonde? Never. Not like this.