I took the bus to Swindon with a newly bought rucksack on my back and a tin on my knees, a whole sponge cake inside that I had to balance on my lap on the way to the train station. I would eat it piece by piece over the next twelve hours, sharing slices with the mum and daughter off for a day’s shopping in London, the dancer who was on her way to Paris for an audition.

“Just a sliver, then, but only a sliver.”

A couple on the train south through France.

“Un gâteau anglais? C’est bon!”

I muttered the names of the stations under my breath. So many years since French class! There was only one slice left, when I finally arrived at the little station deep in the Ardèche. A single car, battered and dusted in ocher, was waiting in the car park.

David put his hand on my waist, leaned in for a kiss.

“What’s in the tin?”

“Cake.”

“I see.” He lifted it for weight. “Feels a bit light.”

“Sacrifices had to be made.”

My face was so pleased to see him, it hurt.

“And Peter?”

“On her Majesty’s secret service.”

The summer was as dry as the spring had been wet. A forest fire in the hills above the campsite at Malbosc. The night turning red, smoke blowing up toward the sickle moon.

“Why cave paintings?”

“There are some things you can’t get out of your head, Andy.” David was standing behind me, his arms loose around my waist. He dropped a kiss on my bare shoulder. “You may as well get on with seeing what they mean.”

A bad driver, humming as the locals tailgated him in a fury.

At the guesthouse, the ancient landlady fell in love with him. Cheri, Cheri, Cheri! She had a black cat—putain!—forever weaving through our legs.

School French: La fraise. Le framboise. J’aime beaucoup des glaces. J’aime beaucoup la nuit.

There is a ruined castle of the Knights Templar, an abandoned village. A rope swing out over a gorge. The jade waters beckoning. The cold green gulp.

We are hunting aurochs, the aurochs underground.

What comes after disillusionment? Can it be lived with? Can it be accommodated? Can you say to someone, you broke my heart and will break it again, and know any peace? Can that someone be life itself?

David bending over the camping stove, chasing a tea bag round a saucepan with a spoon.

The red and white way markers. The forest trails. The cliffs where the climbers come every summer, leaning out over the river, imitating the angels.

“What will we do when the money runs out?”

“What have people ever done?”

The tent in the glade, a brindled dog darting in from out of nowhere and stealing the sausages.