I don’t know about my mother, not yet. If there is still a chance for something. But I’ll seek Dad out tonight. My constant, my source of light. The reservoir is just beyond the fair, if I can find it. I’ll meet Salvi, then I’ll go and look for Dad and Kemp. Kemp … oh God, I can’t think about him right now. He said he loved me. This is the sort of miracle I would have prayed for seven years ago. For him to say I meant more to him. That those times in the houseboat were not just drunken conversations and power ballads. That it wasn’t just me who was sinking and sinking …

I couldn’t see him, when he was talking; I couldn’t listen to him, out on the street like that, when I was rushing to my mother. I don’t know what to think about it all. He loves me? That just doesn’t make sense. How can he love me? How can he now be reflecting back at me the feelings I’ve had for him for so long and kept so far out of sight? This is huge. A huge, hunkering ball of bewilderment I need to stand back from and view clearly, when I feel at the moment nothing much is clear. And what about Salvi? Salvi is the man I have obsessed over recently, have imagined as my future and allowed to light up my life. If Kemp loves me, then how can Salvi be my miracle?

I need to see him. Salvi. Once I see Salvi’s face I’ll know. I’ll know what to do.

When I get to Finsbury Park, in through the arched entrance of the fair, lit by giant bulbs from a starlet’s mirror, I feel light-headed. Of course I have been to fair-ish kinds of places over the past years: a seaside pier on a work’s trip (jolly from the local sandwich factory), an indoor bowling alley that had arcade games and its own carousel (jolly from the bookies); but I never thought I’d be back here again – with the clanging music, the flashing lights, the whirring machinery, the smell of kerosene and candyfloss and hot dogs – and the memories. Telling Dad about that awful encounter with Shaun only this afternoon has hardly helped. I remember how upset he was, so helpless in hindsight. It’s a big thing to tell a father. I can’t wait to see him.