To me, Carlo was the activist who swept me off my feet. Only years later did I discover that nothing he told me had been real – and that he was a spy cop and already married

It’s September 2015 and my mum and my sister have come by train from Scotland to visit me at home on the Kent coast, hoping to catch the last of the autumn heat. They live in the rainiest part of the UK, and I’ve moved to the corner with the most sun.

I close the kitchen door on my twin daughters playing in the living room, shushing the dogs away.

This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.