‘If I buy you something,’ Anna said, ‘will you drink it this time?’

Early afternoon at the de Spencer Arms. Warm sunshine. A light wind bringing the scents of gorse and salt over from the other side of the Downs, blowing deflated crisp-bags between the outside tables. The car park was empty. Skylarks hung in the air like clockwork toys, whirring and pouring out notes of music, rising and falling abruptly according to no obvious plan. Inside, it was wall-to-wall weekday afternoon: rank smell of carpet grease, cheese & vegetable fritters, ancient beer fumes; madness of boredom in the blue eyes of the pub collie behind the bar. A couple in matching dark blue double-breasted suits stood by the fake wood fire, posed as if it was October, the woman distinguishable mainly by her stature and the way her bottom stuck out. She sported ear-rings like little wheels, a piece of ribbon worn as a bow-tie, the air of an American comedienne in a knockabout film of the 1950s. ‘I told him at Niagra,’ she was saying as Anna entered, ‘as I’d told him in Datchet.’ They looked like tour guides. It was the usual warning, Anna thought, against getting old.

She carried the drinks out carefully.

‘This time I got us both Harvey’s. I enjoyed the last one. Where are your beautiful dogs? I was looking forward to seeing them again.’

‘They’re dead, those dogs.’

‘Dead?’

‘Wasted away,’ the boy said. ‘Some say it’s nature, but I’ll have none of that.’

‘You must be heartbroken!’

He seemed to consider this. Then he shrugged. ‘See over there? Over the Western Brow? Buzzard.’ He laughed shortly. ‘He’s out for something, that bugger,’ he said. He drank half his beer in one long swallow. ‘Them down the fields say it’s my fault, but I’m having none of that.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The boy shrugged. ‘Why should you?’ he concluded. ‘But they ran well to the lamp, those dogs.’

Though Anna waited for more, that seemed to be the end of it. They sat in the sunshine, half-awkward, half-companionable, then she bought another drink. The Downs were gilded. Something about the slow drift of afternoon to evening, the slow lengthening of shadows under Streat Hill, made objects seem closer than they were. Distant sounds seemed louder, too. Everything seemed more present. Behind them, the car park began to fill with people down from London: single men squeezing their TVRs and Italian motorcycles in between the ill-parked SUVs; single-activity tourists descending from the Downs in their cycling, walking or birdwatching outfits. Half a dozen women, one of whom wore two-tone breeches and brown suede boots with fringes, arrived together on immaculately turned-out horses. Two of them went to get drinks. The boy watched the women. Anna watched the boy.

‘Tell me about lamping,’ she said.

He thought about that. ‘You want a good dark night,’ he said eventually.