‘Not unless you come too,’ he says, grimacing as the rain beats down. ‘I’m not leaving a young lass like you out here in this weather. And you don’t want to be responsible for me getting hypothermia, do you?’

‘I just wanted to be able to remember,’ I say, putting my hands to my head. ‘That’s all.’

‘And you will,’ he says, raising his voice to be heard above the rain. ‘But sometimes memories come back when you least expect them.’

I turn and look at the water. Maybe he’s right.

‘Is there someone I can call?’ says Tom. ‘Someone who can come and fetch you?’

‘There’s Sonia,’ I say.

‘Who’s Sonia?’

‘She’s my … my friend.’

‘All right,’ says Tom. ‘Why don’t we go and get to the main road and then we’ll call Sonia? Come on, love.’

He holds his hand out and I stumble towards him.

‘That’s a good lass,’ he says, guiding me away from the river. ‘We’ll call Sonia and it’ll all be fine.’

I nod my head and walk next to him in a daze. As we make our way back to the path I look down and notice that I’m still holding Elspeth’s poem in my hands. It is sodden from the rain but I hold it to my face and kiss it, one, two, three times.

37