In between searching the venue for Salvi, of course. He’s missed at least three songs. I keep trying to catch his face among the crowd but I can’t see him anywhere. Now and then, when I think I do, it’s always someone else. A stranger. Nobody that I want as my miracle. There’s a woman in front of me with ridiculously shiny red hair and she keeps getting in my way whenever I look towards the exits and the bars. Where is he? I keep looking at my phone, too, but there’s radio silence.

‘This is great,’ says Kemp, his hands in his pockets, jigging around like a coiled spring. I’m trying to ignore him. Why is he still hanging around with us? Where are his mates?

‘I love this one!’ cries Dad, as ‘Union City Blue’ strikes up and Debbie caresses the mic. He starts dancing again.

‘Brilliant, Dad!’ I am looking, looking. So many people, so many heads and T-shirts and shirts and jackets and hair. The woman in front of me flicks her shiny red hair again, and I can’t see past her.

‘Are you all right?’ asks Kemp.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, thanks,’ I say impatiently. Oh, there he is. There’s Salvi, coming from the other direction. I can see his hair, his face in profile as it flashes between the moving heads of others. Relief seeps into me like candlelight. Salvi’s here, he wants to be with me; everything is going to be OK.

‘Hi, Prue. So sorry I’m late. I had a thing that turned into another thing. You know how it is.’ I don’t. My life was empty of both meaning and events until I met him. He’s standing in front of me wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans, black boots. He’s about the coolest person in this place. ‘You’re looking lovely.’

‘Thank you, I’ve been shopping.’ I can’t seem to stay out of real shops these days. I’ve been to Zara and to Mango and to Wallis. I’ve even been to Topshop, Oxford Circus. I almost baulked at the top of the escalators as I had a sudden horrible memory of Georgina laughing at me in one of the changing rooms and saying I wasn’t ‘really pulling off’ the dress we were about to shoplift, but I did it. And it’s all for him.

‘Hello, again,’ says Salvi to Dad.

‘Salvi,’ says Dad.

Salvi looks at Kemp. ‘This is Kemp,’ I offer reluctantly. ‘An old friend of mine.’

Kemp puts his hand forward and Salvi shakes it. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he says.

‘Likewise,’ says Salvi with a trace of steel. There’s an awkward silence then Salvi says, ‘Right then, my beauty, I’m just going to get myself a pint.’