We’re walking through all the people. We’re getting some looks. Does it look weird that the Covent Garden street performer is pulling the show pony he drew from the crowds through the crowds? Will they think I’ve pulled? They must think I’m very lucky if I have. Close up, Salvi is still not handsome, but he has something: something magnetic, sexy; something that makes you want to never take your eyes off him. I try not to glance at him as often as I am.

‘Your dad is not that old,’ Salvi says, as we approach the Moomin Shop. He is smiling at me, his eyes casting themselves over my face and my body.

‘He had me young,’ I reply. ‘At sixteen.’ I wonder if Salvi is now calculating my age or whether it is announced on my face like a calling card. I also wonder about my birthmark. It has been rained on and had a Hello Kitty backpack scraped across it – is it still covered?

‘Oh, right. Sixteen …’ He nods and throws me another smile. ‘And you’re very pretty.’

‘Shut up!’ The words escape me like air. My impulse reaction. My knee-jerk.

‘Shut up?’ His eyes are sparkling at me. I shrug. I have never been called pretty in my life. Not once. Never. He can’t possibly be sincere. ‘It’s true,’ he says.

‘Whatever,’ I reply. ‘I’m here, Dad!’ I say to Dad as we come to a stop in front of him. Salvi is still holding my hand.

‘I’m being entertained,’ says Dad, smiling in the direction of my voice.

‘Again?’ lilts Salvi. ‘Your daughter was flat on her back with someone’s bag on her face,’ he adds, and I am reminded of the boys at school always saying they would need to put a bag on my head, in order to do anything with me. ‘She fell, in the scramble for shelter. I’m the juggler. I rescued her.’

‘Entertained further, then,’ says Dad. ‘Are you all right, Prue?’

I hold out my free hand – Salvi still has the other one – and squeeze Dad’s. ‘A bit of a wet bottom, but yes, I’m fine. You?’

‘Right as rain,’ says Dad. ‘I knew you’d find me. And there was no point me looking for you …’ he jokes. ‘These kind ladies escorted me to safety.’

‘We can take you for lunch, if you like,’ says one of the women, broad New York accent. ‘You and your daughter. There’s a fantastic Italian here.’