Ava stroked the faint tracery of scars on his arms.

“You’re not in trouble with it, are you?”

“You mean, am I addicted? No, I don’t think so.”

“How sure are you?”

“Pretty sure.” He closed his eyes. “I mean, I do miss it. If you offered me some right now I don’t think I could say no. But I’m not plotting to run away from you and go find a dealer. Oh, Ava, don’t cry, I don’t want to make you cry, this is why I didn’t call you or write to you, you should be at home being happy with Paul.” He sat up and put his arms awkwardly around her.

“Don’t be sorry, you don’t have anything to be sorry about. Finn, tell me the truth, did I do this to you? Was it my fault?”

“How can it be your fault?”

“I brought you up. I was supposed to look after you.”

“And you did. You were great.”

“But we lived in such shitty places for such a long time.”

“They were not shitty places,” said Finn fiercely. “They were our homes and they were perfect. That last foster home, that was shitty. Squashy sofas and floral borders with matching curtains. And every ninth tile in the kitchen had a picture of a mortar and pestle with a pear next to it.”

“But at least the roof didn’t leak.”

“And,” said Finn, smiling for real now, “in their bedroom, they had a massive horrible picture of horses running across some beach somewhere, insanely pretty horses with big eyes and floaty hair. Like horse pornography. And above that horrible picture, they had a big peach satin bow. With the ends tucked behind the picture and poking out of the bottom. And a little v cut into the ends.”

“They didn’t. Did they?”

“They did ’till I stole the ribbon. Do you remember that hairclip I gave you? With the big peach bow?”

“You didn’t!”

“It looked much nicer in your hair than on their wall.”

“Do you think they ever knew?”

“Well, if they did they never said anything.”

“Still,” said Ava, “they didn’t ever give you tinned ravioli for dinner.”

“That’s because they were idiots. Tinned ravioli is the food of the Gods.”

“What kind of God encourages his followers to eat tinned ravioli?”

“The let-it-all-hang-out kind of a God. A God who’s not afraid to embrace His inner slob. You didn’t only feed me tinned ravioli. Once you made that thing with raspberries and meringues and cream cheese.”

“They were all from the reduced shelf. Is that a policeman?”

“Oh, shit, is it?” Finn sat bolt upright.

“What? What have you done?”

“Oh, you know. Forged bank notes and a highly convincing cow-suit and a guy selling fake magic beans. The main thing is, we all got equally ripped off. No, I’m kidding. The police are absolutely not looking for me over some forged bank notes and a highly convincing cow-suit and fake magic beans. Look, he’s going now anyway.”