At first he did not notice Joanna. She was much quieter than all the others, shy, withdrawn, painfully thin. Alex with her long red hair and her loud clear voice was always the centre of attention. She had the authority of motherhood and seemed strong enough to look after them all. At first Simon thought he was in love with her. It was Alex who introduced him to cannabis and Nietzsche and took him into the big low bed with the Indian cotton cover and babies sleeping close by and made love to him. But Alex gave her favours to everyone and there was something demeaning in the universal benevolence. He thought they could never be on equal terms.

One day Joanna asked if she might go with him on to the hill. He always got up before the rest of them. He seemed to be the only one with regular work and was never sure how they survived. The dole, he supposed, or rich parents. Because he knew he would be out all day he usually cooked a big breakfast while the kitchen was quiet. Most of the residents were vegetarian and disapproved of his sausage and bacon so it was a furtive, almost shameful, operation. Joanna appeared at the door of the long, draughty room and he saw her as if for the first time.

‘Can I come too?’ she asked. Her hair was long then, fine and curly. She wore tight jeans, a T-shirt and no bra. She was as thin and shapeless as Alex’s six-year-old daughter.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s a long walk. Would you keep up?’ He was frightened she would be a liability. Alex talked about her to him sometimes with concern and had once described her as neurotic.

‘I’m stronger than I look,’ she said. ‘I’ve got boots.’

So he took her with him and was surprised that she knew the hills so well. She even made suggestions about where to look for nests.

‘I used to live round here,’ she said when he commented on her local knowledge. ‘My dad brought me for walks in the hills when I was a kid.’

She said nothing more about her childhood and at that time he had never even heard her surname. He did not connect her with the Cadver Estate.

She took to accompanying him regularly on the walks. Sometimes she shared his breakfast but more often she was waiting for him in the untidy garden when he came out of the house. But though they spent whole days on the hills together he learnt little more about her.