The episodes were held in check by the presence of the vicar and Patricia, but I could feel them stacking up, like a series I had committed to watching that would run for years and years. I gave the Whites the answers they wanted—a short period traveling, followed perhaps by a course of some kind. I helped the vicar set up a Facebook page for the church. In the evenings, I returned to aimlessly clicking and scrolling, feeling a sickening lurch as I resumed my role as an investor in the attention economy, the rewards small—those tiny dopamine hits—the losses imperceptible, but cumulatively significant.

I wanted David, knew it, but my fear of falling off a cliff was nothing compared to the fear of giving myself to another person. I couldn’t think of romantic love as anything other than a wild speculation, an investment in an economic bubble that would inevitably burst.

I considered love’s economy—its currency of gestures, its debts and crashes. I thought of girls in summer dresses wheeling barrows full of worthless notes. I thought of couples exchanging foreign notes with one another. I thought of love’s bad checks and black market, its lost fortunes and bubbles. I thought of men staring up at screens in devotion, watching love’s market value rise and fall. I thought of love’s vault, its gold reserves, its overdrafts and exchange. Love’s loans and repayment plans. Its bankruptcies and defaults.

A risky business, a bad investment. I had done the sums, over and over, and they did not add up.

But love is not money … I heard a quiet voice say. To compare love with money is a great mistake.

England was playing football. A big game, the biggest for years. The roads were empty, and as I took the lane into the Savernake, from somewhere far off I thought I heard cheering. Deer had eaten the green bark from some of the younger trees, leaving torn patches. Their hoofprints patterned the mud at the side of the road. A van approached and I stood aside to let it pass.

It slowed to a halt and the passenger window rolled down.

“Get in,” Marcus said.

I only hesitated for a moment before opening the door and climbing inside. The van was new. It had that smell. On the dash there was a screen. Digital radio, USB ports, air con, the works. Marcus was listening to Radio Six these days. I closed the door and he pulled away, eyes on the road ahead into the forest.

“Did you get the tape?”

Marcus seemed to flinch at my voice, then he nodded. He was beefy now, thick about the neck and shoulders. You could see his uncle in him.

“I wish you’d leave us alone.”

“I thought you might want to have it. She made it for you.”