The only thing that’s different about the look and feel of this fair from the one in my teenage memory – they haven’t really moved on, have they? – is the music. It’s Dua Lipa and Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift all trying to out-do each other under flashing neon, instead of eighties cheese. A bored youth slumps at the gate of the Ferris wheel, where I’m to meet Salvi, mouthing along to ‘New Rules’ and pretending not to despise the children that are flashing their wristbands at her. I think of Philippa, in the laser place where she worked – another assaulting sensory overload, I expect, under a confining roof. At least here you can see the night sky and the stars above the jangle of coloured metal and the lights. I can breathe this time, I think. I’m not fourteen any more. I’m a grown woman who makes her own decisions and is in control. Maybe Philippa couldn’t breathe – anywhere. Maybe she just couldn’t see the night sky and the stars, no matter how hard she looked.

Salvi is not here. I look into the surrounding crowd, I double-check the long queue; I even look skywards to the mini-gondola capsules of the Ferris wheel and half expect him to be hanging out of one, laughing, greeting me with a shout and a bottle of beer. A woman and a young boy shove past me to get to the queue. She glares at me: I am in the way. I feel exposed, waiting here. Why am I always waiting for him?

There are two lads over by the red cab where the operator sits. They are all snarls and crew cuts and basketball vests; baggy track pants and monstrous bright white trainers. They keep looking over at me. I move away from the Ferris wheel. Perhaps there’s been a misunderstanding; perhaps Salvi meant somewhere else. I wander over to the other side, to the distorted mirrors attraction. I go from each like a crab. Here I am tall and stretched and thin, a pin head. Now I am short and squat, sat upon. Then I have hilarious lanky legs, but a squashed body and no neck. In the last one I just see my face.

‘Tricked you!’ says a sign above it. ‘This is YOU!’ Charming. My foundation is still on – just. My eyes are a little wild. I look a bit like I did in the mirror of Salvi’s car. In the corner of this mirror I spy the back of his head. There he is. He pulls his phone from his jeans pocket then he turns round. For a moment Salvi doesn’t see me. He looks serious, his eyes are cold. Then he spots my face in the mirror and his breaks into a smile.

‘Prue! How you doing?’ He saunters over, kisses me on the cheek – the wrong one.

‘Good, thanks.’