She reached in and pulled it out, expecting it to be Daniel wondering where the hell she was. Things had overrun somewhat, which was fine with her. She didn’t want to turn up before him, or worse still, exactly on time. Leona was still firmly in the let’s-appear-to-be-cool-about-things phase.

She quickly read the display to see who was calling her. At first glance the number was unfamiliar, but she answered anyway.

‘Yuh?’

‘Leona? It’s Dad.’

‘Dad!’ she replied, the pitch of her voice shooting up with surprise.

He rarely called her. If it was a call from home, it was Mum, and Dad might pick up the other handset and say ‘hi’, ask how things were going, and if she needed anything. But that was it. Mum was the one who got all the gory details. She wondered if something bad had happened to her.

‘Is Mum okay?’

‘What? Oh yeah, she’s fine.’

The signal was awful, crackling and dropping.

‘Are you okay Dad?’ she asked.

There was a momentary delay suggesting the call was from abroad.

‘Yeah, yeah I’m fine, love.’

‘Are you still out of the country?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, I’m still over here. I’m coming back very soon though.’

‘Oh, okay. Cool. So is that why you rang?’

‘No. Listen Leona, did you watch the news this morning?’

‘No, not really.’

‘There are serious problems over here. There was a bomb in Saudi—’

‘Oh yeah, I heard about that on the radio. Riots or something.’

A pause, or maybe it was the signal dropping, it was hard to tell.

‘I’m worried about this, Leona. I think it’s going to affect everyone.’

‘Dad, look, if it was serious there’d be an announcement on the campus of some sort. Don’t worry about us,’ she replied with a weary sigh. Then it occurred to her that he might be in some danger. ‘How are things over there for you?’

‘I’m okay right now. But I’m planning to get a plane out tonight if I can, honey. I think it’s going to get very nasty here. But listen, this is really important, Leona.’

She reached the student union bar and pulled the door open. Inside she could see Daniel sitting in a window seat, watching for her. He waved.

‘Dad, I’ve got to go.’

‘No! Listen. Leona . . .?’

She halted, nodded at Daniel and put a finger up to indicate she’d be with him in a minute. And then let the door swing to, shutting out the noise coming from inside.

‘What is it?’

‘Where’s Mum?’

‘She said something about going up to Manchester for something . . . to visit some friends, I think. She’s up there until the end of the week.’

Leona heard him curse under his breath.

‘Listen sweetheart, I’d like you to go home to London, right now.’

‘What?’

‘I’d like you to pick up Jake from his school, go to the supermarket and spend as much as you can on food, water and—’

‘Dad! I can’t do that!’

‘Leona . . . I’m asking you!’ he replied, his voice beginning to develop that tone; the one that ultimately led to a bollocking if you pushed him hard enough.

‘No, you can’t ask me to do that. I can’t bail out of uni before the end of term—’

He surprised her when his voice softened, ‘Please, Leona. I know you’re all fed up hearing about crap like this. I’m not stupid. I know I’ve bored you with all those oil things. But I think this situation is going to get bad enough that you need to be prepared for it. I have to know you’re all okay.’

‘We’re fine! Okay? We’re absolutely fine.’

‘Leona, you know I’m not go—’

The call disconnected suddenly and left her with the soft purr of a dial tone. She pulled the phone away from her ear and looked down at it as if it was some kind of alien life form.

She waited a moment for the phone to tremble again, and after hanging on patiently for a minute, she tucked it away into her jacket pocket, pulled the door open and entered the bar. Daniel was still sitting in his seat, same posture, but with a quizzical look on his face.

As she sat down beside him she said, ‘Don’t ask. It was my dad being really weird.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘Oh God, it would take too long.’

He smiled and shrugged. ‘Fair enough. What do you want?’

‘Half a lager.’

Daniel got up and squeezed past her, placing a hand on her thigh and pinching gently - a little gesture that he was thinking about last night - and then wandered over to the bar.

But her mind was elsewhere. On the call from Dad, and also on those short soundbites she’d heard on the radio that morning, only what . . . four or five hours ago? Surely things hadn’t changed that much in such a short time.