When we get off, Salvi clamps his arm down on my shoulders, just like the bar on our carriage. He weighs on me, as we walk – Dino behind – claiming ownership, bearing down. I’m reminded of the arguing couple outside the pub on the way to the Roundhouse, but that man at least showed affection in his gesture. This feels like a statement of intent. Am I Salvi’s girlfriend? Do I want to be? I love you. That’s what Kemp said. I can see his face now. I also said once I saw Salvi’s face I would know. I glance at him as we walk. I try to appraise him carefully. Sometimes he looks so cold, like he just turns on warmth when he thinks he needs to. When it suits him. I worry I could badly cut myself on his edge, that sharp glittering side to him he has shown me so many times. What did Dad say? If he shows you who he is, see it. Has he shown me? Have I just not been looking properly?

‘All right, darling?’ asks Salvi, pressing my body into the ground with his arm.

‘Great!’ I smile.

‘Even though you don’t like fairs?’

‘I’m fine.’

I get the sudden impression he has brought me here on purpose, to a place I said I didn’t care for. That he wants me to feel and admit to some sort of fear. I look at him again. This is a man who doesn’t shake hands or say ‘sorry’. This is a man who runs out on me all the time, who sometimes looks at me with contempt, who has told me I should be ‘fucking grateful’. Who has picked me up and dropped me whenever he feels like it. Push and pull, that’s how it’s been with him. Push and pull. This is not the man who has told me that he loves me, on the street. That I am ‘home’ for him. This is a man who I believe, suddenly, enjoys manipulating people. I’ve been focusing on the wrong man, haven’t I? I have had tunnel vision down absolutely the wrong tunnel. I’ve made a mistake.

‘My father’s here somewhere,’ I fib, ‘I need to go and find him.’

Salvi is not my destiny. He may have been set on the path I walk on, but I don’t have to walk on that path. I can get off, and I can walk away from this man who is not my miracle and towards the one I never dared believe could be the best thing in my life. I need to find my father and Kemp and tell them both how much they mean to me. I need to get away.