On a flat spot back from the edge, I scratch back the grass and sticks to make a bare area for the fire. When it is crackling, I pitch the tent, and then get sausages and bread from the esky, put them near the fire to defrost, set out my deckchair, and sit to watch the fire. I have that feeling I always have when I camp, that maybe I’ll stay here forever and never return to the house, with all its echoing memories and pain. There is much pleasure in being away from a place where every creak of a wall or a contraction in the roof makes me think it’s James coming up the hallway or Sarah getting ready for bed.

There was a time, too, when I used to come up here in the afternoon with a sixpack of beers, and just sit, maybe listen, and drink beer till I fell asleep or my phone buzzed with Sarah wondering if I was all right. Now I think maybe I’ll bring a bed up and get a little fridge I can run off the car, and the whole world can just go away. I open a beer, and enjoy the creeping autumn dusk.

As darkness falls, the noise of nature recedes with it. The birds give up, as do the remaining blowflies and insects. Even the drone from distant machinery fades. The world can be a quiet place without human things. I sit and think nothing, blissfully. Soon the only light is from my fire.