When we get to the forest, we look for an area with good cover, not too far from a stream. We find a small place surrounded by bushes. We can stay here for a while, and maybe come back here too. Some of the bushes are evergreens, so they’ll shield us in the winter. I mark the place on our maps. We use branches and a picnic blanket, and cover them with ferns to build a bivouac. I set out bowls to catch rainwater. We take off our layers of clothes and pack them away, back in the waterproof bag. We make a light camp; we might need to move quickly.

We build our first fire, just for the practice: dry leaves and twigs, one match, one candle, smiling in the glow of it. We eat sardines and madeleines. I read Cara her book and brush her nine teeth. While she sleeps in the tent, I leave the camp and scrape the dirty nappies with leaves, then wash them in the stream. When I get back I curl against her. A fine rain patters on the bivouac, but in our sleeping bags we are warm, and it will only get warmer this summer. We should be hardened enough when October comes round.

In the morning I wash myself, upstream of the nappies. I find some field mushrooms on the banks, and cut them with my penknife: they smell fresh and mouldy, damp with dew or rain. I walk back jubilant, a longer way, so as not to make a path between our camp and the stream. Nettles grow everywhere. I’ll pick some later, to stew with the mushrooms.

As I cross a clearing, a huge auburn fox, the biggest I’ve seen, as big as a pig, pounds past me, a hare in its jaws. Another, younger fox chases it. I watch them hurtle through the wet trees, flashing tawny and white.

When I return to the camp, Cara is standing outside. She is barefoot. She fixes me with her eyes and takes two tiny steps on the forest floor, then a pause, then one more. I run to her and scoop her up, then show her the mushrooms, which she wants to eat immediately. I wipe them on a cloth, slice them and put them in the pan.

‘Dean, I’m going back for nettles,’ I shout, and I grab my winter gloves.

I wonder about the foxes, and the other things. Will we be their prey, when the weather turns, when the ice sets in?

I wonder about loneliness.

Maybe we’ll find some of the others? There must be others.

‌My Brother Is Back

He was woken one evening and told that he was going home.