“And what really struck me was that the woman still meant so much to Grandad after all of those years. She burned in his memory in a way that she never would have if he’d left his wife and sons for her. It got me thinking about how sometimes it’s the people we don’t get to have who stay with us the most.”

“Ridiculous really, when you think that I come from a broken home and I probably have low self-esteem. But the way I see it, people who go around spending themselves easily don’t have low self-esteem. They have really high self-esteem. If someone like me tried to live like that, there’d be nothing left. I don’t know. It’s complicated. The girls who roll with guys like this are gorgeous. Somehow that makes them immune to being reduced.”

“Have people been staring at you?’He frowns. ‘I don’t know. I guess so. I forgot it was there. Can you really notice it?’‘Well yeah, but … I think it’s great.’ To me, Danny rocking up to surf with graffiti all over his face is magic. I want to tell him that I think he’s precious, that the fact he talks to me is a gift. But of course you can’t say things like that to people”

“Anna’s one of those people who get fired up about injustices in the world; quick to quiver with rage because other people don’t ignite like she does.”

“It’s always about the money. And the problem with that is: if the people who love you are always weighing up what you cost, then you’re never really sure who’s got your back.”

“After a while I get the feeling that Mum and Brian aren’t home. Kane either. It’s because the house is making so much noise; ticking and creaking as it stretches in the sun. Acting like a house does when nobody’s around to see it. It must have forgotten about me.”

“Yet, in the middle of all this grief, I realize there’s a part of me clinical enough to want to document it. People talk about artists like they’re these sensitive, delicate beings who don’t use the toilet, but I think the real ones are something else. They’re users. They’re mercenaries. They’re hunters. And they don’t let anything – other people, or themselves – get in the way of it.”