‘They’re not, not really, or not how we’d think of them.’ The girl shrugged, half smiling. ‘They’re very old, passed down from family to family. An oral tradition. But I love them,’ she added with sudden feeling. ‘They’re just so honest, you know? It’s all about the dangers of the wild world, and good and bad, and doing the right things …’ She trailed off. ‘I thought it would be good to read them out here, as if they … as if they would be more real out here.’ She flushed a darker shade of pink, clearly embarrassed. ‘Anyway.’

They had come to the edge of the woods, and the commune stretched away in front of them. It still wasn’t huge but, as the man liked to put it, its citizens were enthusiastic. From where they stood, Michael could see the man – he looked so much older among all these young people – standing over a group who were mostly sitting. There was a fire going, and the smell of coffee drifted towards them. Most of the men and women looked barely awake, but there were the two Bickerstaff sisters standing with the man, and they looked alert enough, their long blonde hair recently cut very short, into twin pixie cuts. The man called them his ‘Hitchcock girls’, although Michael had only the vaguest idea why; the one time he had been to the cinema, he had panicked when the lights had gone down and he had had to leave rapidly – the cupboard had seemed very close, that day.

‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ The woman sounded uncertain as she said it. Michael just nodded. ‘They love hearing him talk, about the countryside, the vital importance of the rural landscape, about freedom from domesticity and the rat race. Some of the stuff he says, makes me wonder …’

She trailed off again and Michael wondered if she ever did finish a thought out loud. They were closer now to the group, and he found his eyes going to a couple on the edge of the circle; the man had his hand up the woman’s jumper, and she was yawning, not quite paying attention to him. All at once he realized that the girl was looking at them too, and when she glanced up at him he saw something in her eyes – fear, excitement. The white length of her neck seemed to shine in the morning light, and he felt a powerful surge of emotion towards her: protectiveness and lust, all tied up and tangled. She is the hare that lays down for the teeth, he thought, abruptly dizzy.

‘I should go back,’ she said doubtfully. ‘It’s my turn to wash out the breakfast pans.’

‘What’s your name?’ His voice seemed to come from very far away.

‘Colleen,’ she said.

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