‘Getting rowdy in pubs at your age,’ Dad says. ‘You’ll be barred.’ He’s smiling, a full-on grin that makes him look younger too. He likes seeing Mum like this.

‘Oh, God, people must have heard us, mustn’t they? I didn’t even notice. Do you know, Frank, at one stage Dee said to me, “You probably want to get home, don’t you?” and I actually said, “Why?” When she said “home”, I was picturing my parents’ house. My bedroom when I was seventeen. I was thinking, “Why on earth would I be in a hurry to get back there?” I was so deep in 1982, I’d forgotten all of this existed.’

She’s grinning through a hand pressed over her mouth, ashamed and delighted. ‘Child neglect,’ Dad says to Holly. ‘Write it down, in case you ever feel like dobbing her in.’

Something skitters across Holly’s mind: Julia in the glade a long time ago, the tender amused curl of her mouth, This isn’t forever. It snatches Holly’s breath: she was wrong. They are forever, a brief and mortal forever, a forever that will grow into their bones and be held inside them after it ends, intact, indestructible.

‘She gave me this,’ Mum says, fishing in her bag. She pulls out a photo – white border turning yellow – and puts it down on the bar. ‘Look. That’s us: me and Deirdre and Miriam. That’s us.’

Her voice does something funny, curls up. For a horrified second Holly thinks she’s going to cry, but when she looks up Mum is biting her lip and smiling.

Three of them, older than Holly, maybe a year or two. School uniforms, Kilda’s crest on their lapels. Look close and the kilt is longer, the blazer is boxy and ugly, but if it weren’t for that and the big hair, they could be out of the year above her. They’re messing, draped pouting and hip-jutting on a wrought-iron gate – it takes a strange twitch like a blink before Holly recognises the gate at the bottom of the back lawn. Deirdre is in the middle, shaking a raggedy dark perm forward over her face, all curves and lashes and wicked glint. Miriam is small and fair and feather-haired, fingers snapping, sweet grin through braces. And over on the right Olivia, long-legged, head flung back and hands tangled in her hair, halfway between model and mockery. She’s wearing lip gloss, pale candyfloss-pink – Holly can picture the mild distaste on Mum’s face if she wore it home one weekend. She looks beautiful.

‘We were pretending to be Bananarama,’ Mum says. ‘Or someone like that, I don’t think we were sure. We were in a band that term.’

‘You were in a band?’ Dad says. ‘I’m a groupie?’