“What’s that? Oh. Yes, sorry, sorry. I... Well, yes, as I said, I just want to check the route before we set off again. That’s all. Honestly, Sadie, thank you, but please do go on without me.”

I hadn’t really seen Leonard be anything other than varying degrees of chipper. Perhaps the shine of Norman and me was wearing off and he was wishing he was back home with his lovely Iris. Before I had time to start worrying about it Leonard raised an arm to give a quick wave to the others and turned away.

We left him tapping away at his laptop in the foyer of the Eden Rock and wandered down to the café where we’d met Kathy and Tony two days before. And even though I never thought you’d catch me saying this, the goodbye felt like it was going to be a lot harder than the hello.

Norman chased his toast and jam around the plate and I could tell he was trying very hard not to stare at Kathy and Tony too much, but he was also really concentrating on what they were saying. Kathy talked earnestly about Swansea’s homeless problem and how important it was to keep the issues in front of the local politicians, and I wondered what it was like to be so passionate about something that you were willing to stand up and do something about it. Your fierceness and your fearlessness.

I looked over at Norman in his stretched and faded T-shirt and his pink, splotchy face, then down at my bitten nails, unraveling jumper and saggy-kneed jeans and wondered if perhaps we weren’t just one step away from the homeless folk of Wales ourselves. And that maybe they were actually better off than us, because at least they had Kathy and Tony.

Had that really been me Tony had been talking about, that fierce and fearless girl? A girl who could have a conversation about the Brontë sisters and Liam Gallagher and the bigness and wonderfulness of the world? The same girl who stood in the kitchen where her father killed himself and told kindly people with triangles of ham sandwiches in their hands to fuck right off. The girl who walked out of that house the very next day with just a box full of old DVDs, some photo albums and a purple velvet suit jacket. The girl who had nobody left to disappoint.

A whoosh of wind blew back the hair of everyone in the café and I looked up to see Leonard practically skidding across the greasy café floor in his gleaming Nikes, laptop clutched to his chest and glasses balanced wonkily on top of his head. He came to an elegant halt at our table, mouth open to catch his breath.

The waitress paused at the next table with two cappuccinos in her hand, the guy in the kitchen poised his spatula mid egg flip, and even the traffic outside ground to a halt at a red light. The whole world was looking at Leonard, but Leonard was looking only at Norman.