‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’

As we wait at the zebra crossing, a bus stops right by my legs and pumps hot exhaust fumes round my ankles. My shoes clamp tight to my toes.

‘How much further?’

‘Nearly there.’

We pass a café with the word ‘Tiffin’ written on the window. I ask Dad what that means. He says he thinks it’s another name for tea.

Crossing the bridge, Dad tries to take my hand. I let him hold it lightly for a minute, but when we reach the other side I slip my fingers away.

‘Here we are,’ he announces.

He points at a huge dirty building with a tower and windows like you get in churches. We step through the doorway into a dark, silent passageway.

‘Is this the University?’ I whisper.

‘This is it,’ says Dad. ‘This is the University.’

We walk through the passageway and out into a big garden at the back. Willow trees swish along the grass in the breeze. All round us, people are shielding their eyes and looking up. A lot of them are clutching guidebooks.

‘Where are the students?’ I ask.

‘Term hasn’t started yet.’

‘Lazy buggers.’

Dad smiles and we stand for a minute, looking up, like everyone else, at the blank squares of glass that make up the college windows. I imagine the students sitting in there, reading, their un-hairsprayed heads bent over their desks.

I look around at the other people on the lawn. Apart from the people with guidebooks, every girl seems to be wearing a longer skirt than me. And their hair isn’t flicked up or brushed out. It just hangs.

I wait for Dad to say something.

‘Shall we sit over there?’ He points at a tree whose branches are so big and low they look like giant’s hands.

‘All this time living here, and we never came.’ Dad lays down beneath the branches. ‘Why didn’t we come here before?’

I concentrate on sitting on the grass without showing Dad too much thigh.

After a while he sits up. ‘I’m not making a very good job of this, am I?’

I pick a handful of grass and throw it over his knee.

‘Do you like it here, Joanna?’

I consider the willow trees with their long fingers, the girls with their long skirts, the blank, black windows. I don’t know the answer.

‘You could come here,’ says Dad, leaning close to me, ‘if you work hard.’

I throw some more grass over his legs.

‘Mind the suit,’ he says, brushing it off. He scratches at his brillo-pad hair. ‘I mean it.’ His eyes are big and red. ‘I know you’ve got the brains, even if you don’t always use them. You can come here. It’s possible.’

I pick up a shard of old bark, dig it under my nail to clean out the dirt.

‘No one told me things are possible. I mean, not everything you think is impossible is impossible.’

‘What are you on about?’