Camille looked out of the window into the street-lamp-lit London night, and saw the ghost of a Roman legion tramping across the lawn. She detested how flippant her husband could be.

Seb filled the empty pasta pot and began to scrub it.

Then:

‘I think my brother George may have money problems.’

JUDGE: Please confirm your full name.

JIM: James Anthony Mills.

JUDGE: You taught geography at Ayrness High.

JIM: I’m asking for my job back, now that Miss Thompson has been suspended.

JUDGE: You recently gave an interview to BBC Look North complaining of the feminist agenda of some of the female teachers there. It’s also something that you mention in your witness statement.

JIM: That’s right. At the time I didn’t know there was an actual agenda but I knew something was up. We were mistreated, the boys and I.

JUDGE: Can you detail some of the things you consider miscarriages of justice?

JIM: Our views were never listened to, in staff meetings. I don’t think the things we said were ever written down. We were interrupted constantly. I’ve put in a Freedom of Information request because I think we were paid less than female members of staff of an equivalent pay grade. It happened with the collusion of the council.

JUDGE: The female staff who you say were paid more, did they have special skills?

JIM: I doubt it. I don’t think so.

JUDGE: And amongst the students?

JIM: The female students tended to avoid me. Other male members of staff would say the same.

JUDGE: Did any male students come to you with complaints of mistreatment, discrimination?

JIM: No, but that’s only because they didn’t realise.

JUDGE: How would you describe the culture among female members of staff? [Pause]

JIM: Yeasty.

PUBLIC GALLERY: [Laughter]

Zoe didn’t tell her mum where the Green Club was camping. The original plan was up on the common overlooking Astrid, but that had been changed at the very last minute. Apparently there was a weather front coming in, and the common was too exposed. It was Ravi who’d suggested Harcourt Wood. I’m sure my grandmother won’t mind, Zoe said, but I’ll ask her just in case. And the others nodded.

In the end, the weather held, in a manner of speaking. No storms, although it rained on and off, as the wind moved the weather through. Enthusiastically, the Green Club explored the wood. They communed with the trees. The great old oak on the boundary with the North Field was centuries old, its wide, comfortable trunk covered with little twigs, like stubble on a scruffy man’s chin, or hair on an emancipated woman’s leg. Zoe pointed out rabbit holes to her friends, and gave them wood sorrel to taste, a tangy shot of lemon. They listened to the birds sing. For supper they ate sorrel with potatoes, which, since they had forgotten a knife, they cut into pieces with their teeth, then fried with eggs. ‘Gross,’ said Ravi, looking at the shreds of premasticated raw tattie. ‘It’ll be delicious,’ said Stella, stirring it around in the pan with a stick. It was pretty good; and afterwards, as Stella played the fiddle, and the others washed up, they shared out Ravi’s only packet of Minstrels.