I tell her how my father, a docker, always found time to take me to the public baths where he held my wrists and floated me out into the middle of the pool. So I would not be frightened of the deep, he made little boats out of paper and sailed them a short distance away from me. In this way he taught me how to swim. And how my mother changed from the clothes she wore to make engines for tractors, into the sparkling taffeta skirt with spangles and sequins, glittering as she danced for the sheer fun of getting dizzy; and how she would eat beetroot which she loved more than chocolate, and leave little red kiss marks on my cheeks and hands. She nods and smiles. ‘No one can read our thoughts even if they think they can.’

For some reason her words make me remember the helicopter I saw in the sky the night before. From the thirteenth floor of The Poet’s high-rise flat. How it had a yellow beam shooting down, searching for someone. In gardens, down roads, through the windows of houses. Although it was unlikely, I had felt scared in case they were searching for me and I did not know what I had done. But the most frightening thing of all was I felt they did not know what I had done either.