She and Lucy and Hesther go up to London and march in the streets. They dress up in costumes that they make on sewing machines; they don fat suits with pinstripes to protest against the fat cats in the City. There are bicycles everywhere. There are solar-powered sound systems blowing bubbles into the crowd. Passers-by stop and shake their hips.

She goes to dance classes on a Monday morning, where the teacher plays loud music and people of all ages throw themselves around the room and sweat and shout as though possessed. Sometimes in these classes, when the music is at its height, she screams. No one takes any notice, for this is what you are supposed to do. She realizes that she is angry. Very, very angry indeed.

On the other side of her anger is something else.

One morning, in Cate’s room, Lucy finds her antidepressants.

“What do you want these for?”

“I had a breakdown,” says Cate. “At university. I’ve been taking them since then.”

“You don’t need antidepressants,” says Lucy, looking up at her with a smile. “You just need better friends.”

She throws away her pills, waits for the crash that she fears will come—but feels only relief at the ebbing of the fog.

She is aware, somewhere at the back of her mind, what Hannah would say if she could see her, how easy all of this would be to parody, this benefit fraud and cider drinking and dancing and horizon watching. But she is starting not to care.

She writes Hannah a postcard, an old-fashioned picture of an old woman with her skirt hitched up and her ankles in the sea—Come on in, it says, the water’s lovely.

Lucy and Hesther both have vans, and with her small savings Cate buys one too—a decommissioned ambulance that she parks at a cement works outside the city, and over the winter, with a little help from Lucy and a small Makita drill, converts herself. Tongue-and-groove cladding inside, a bed made from sawed plywood, shelves above, and drawers beneath. It is ready by spring, and when it is finished she thinks she has never been prouder of anything in her life.

There is an album they all listen to, all autumn, winter, spring. Clandestino, by Manu Chao. There is a song, “Minha Galera,” that Cate loves above all.

Oh my waterfall.

Oh my girl.

My Romany girl.

She plays it over and over, and when she listens to it, she thinks of Lucy.

SUMMER COMES. THEY stock up on granola and coffee and rice from the local wholesaler and take to the road. They drive west. They swim naked in rivers, emerging jubilant, silver-backed. They go to small festivals tucked into folds in the green hills.