If she’d stepped out of her door, draped in her favourite dressing gown, mug of coffee the same colour as her skin in hand, and been greeted with the same sight, she’d have been amazed. Her first reaction would have been to grab her phone and take some pictures. Here, it was different.

The wolfman who’d visited them in the night had told them to follow the river as far as the gorge. She squinted upstream, the direction they had to go if they wanted to find this priest, this geomancer. The horizon was hazy. Perhaps she could make out a notch in the mountain, cut by the river, or perhaps she was fooling herself. But priests were supposed to help people in need, even if the ones she’d encountered were long on advice and short on providing the everyday necessities like weed, fags, booze and burgers, phone credits and bus fares.

The wolfman had said the geomancer wanted their stories in exchange for her assistance. Mary could do that. She was good at telling stories, ones that tugged at the heartstrings and opened the wallet.

Dalip knelt by the river a little way off. He was washing, a great loop of jet black hair falling from his head into his hands, shining with water and sunlight. Face bowed to the stream, he was oblivious to her stares, so she carried on watching.

He massaged the water through his hair, twisting and squeezing it out then rewetting it several times. Then he twisted it for the last time, wrapping it tightly like a rope and coiling it around his head. A black bandanna held it close to his head, which he tied into place with deft, practised moves.

It was then that he looked up, and she looked away, too slowly. She could feel her cheeks burn for no reason whatsoever. It wasn’t like he’d been hiding, and it wasn’t like she’d been witnessing something private. A kid washing his hair and tying it up, that was all. She should probably do the same, except she wasn’t going to without hot water, separate bottles of shampoo and conditioner, a towel and a hairdryer.

She daren’t turn back, so she dried her mouth on her sleeve and walked back to the camp. Stanislav was using a long branch to open up the fire and pile on the last of the wood, while the others milled about and grumbled at their stiffness and hunger.

‘Morning, Mama.’

Mama looked dishevelled, like she was laundry and she hadn’t been ironed.

‘I’m going back,’ she said, and pointed with a fat finger. ‘Back to the beach. Back to the door. I’m not spending another minute here longer than I have to.’

‘The door’s gone, Mama. Didn’t you see? It closed behind us.’