‘Would you like a drink, Dad?’ I ask him. He is swaying happily to ‘The Tide Is High’.

‘Yes, love, a bottle of water, please.’

‘Will you be all right while I go to the bar?’

‘Absolutely fine.’

When I get there, having squeezed through the crowd, Kemp is leaning against it, one scruffy boot up on the rail at the bottom and a twenty-pound note in his hand.

‘Are you waiting in line?’

‘Yes, I’m waiting in line.’

‘That sounds loaded.’

‘Does it? Where’s your boyfriend?’

‘In the Gents.’

‘He’s an interesting character.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing much. Just that he’s interesting.’

‘You sound critical.’

‘Should I be?’

‘OK, then, you sound cryptic.’

‘Maybe I’m jealous.’

‘Not this again!’

‘Not what again?’

‘The whole stupid friends with benefits thing.’

‘Come on! You’re way off the mark with that and you know it!’

‘Am I?’

‘Are you happy with that guy?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t like him.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with you.’

‘There’s something about him when he looks at you that I don’t like.’

‘As I said, it’s nothing to do with you …’ I’m bloody annoyed. I turn away, fumble in my bag for my purse. I don’t want to look at him and his fucking earnest eyes.

He grabs my hand. ‘Prue—’

‘Everything all right here, darling?’ Salvi is standing next to me. His eyes are shining. He looks super-charged. I briefly wonder if he’s been somewhere and taken something.

‘Hi, yes, of course it is. I was just getting Dad and me a drink.’

‘I’ll get these,’ says Salvi. He pulls me towards him, away from Kemp, who is swallowed into the waiting crowd. Salvi gestures to one of the bar staff. As he carries the drinks through the crowd I hold on to the back pocket of his jeans like an elephant in the procession in Dumbo. When we get back to Dad, he’s chatting to a girl in a pink tracksuit, her hair teased into top knots. I hand Dad his water and sip my vodka and lime. Then I finally get my wish. To Blondie’s encore, a haunting slow version of ‘Call Me’, Salvi stands behind me and snakes his arms all the way around my waist and laces his fingers together above my belt buckle. He kisses me on the neck. We stand like this for a while, then he pivots me round like a ballerina in a jewellery box and starts kissing me, snogging. Tongues. It’s a little too much. I know Dad is blind and can’t see us, but it makes me feel uncomfortable that he is right there, standing close to me on the left-hand side. And I make the huge mistake of catching Kemp’s eye, standing with his mates, over by the exit, before he turns away. People are starting to stare.