She dives in and holds him tight. His eyes are at the level of her chin, so now her head comes down, bending over him. Her jaw is pressed awkwardly to his cheek. He waits, then he puts his arms around her too, because it seems like the only thing to do.

She rubs his back vigorously. He can feel the sharpness of her body, all bone, surprisingly strong.

‘Warmer?’ she says.

He laughs uneasily. She disengages.

Dillon wonders if she’s drunk. She doesn’t seem drunk. He feels like he should kiss her. He’s not quite certain what a hug means, otherwise. But he has no idea if she’s fit or not.

She’s thin – thin like models are thin. But on her it just looks – thin. And her face might be beautiful, if someone else said it was. Or it might just be odd.

‘You want to go back to the party?’ he says.

She starts to walk. He follows.

‘I think I left my jacket,’ he says. ‘At the party.’

‘You think or you know?’

‘I know.’

‘Oh. You know.’

Her voice is soft, but with a thicker layer of irony in it than he was expecting. He must have heard her speak before, of course.

‘Was it a nice jacket?’ she asks.

‘OK, I guess.’ He thinks about this. ‘I mean, it was nothing special.’

‘What would a special jacket be?’

He shrugs. ‘I dunno. Gold buttons?’

‘That would certainly be special.’

Is she being funny?

‘I know what to look for at Primark now,’ he says, testing it out.

Her laugh is a small, private sound. Dillon doesn’t know if she’s making fun of him. Their footsteps tap along the street to the corner.

‘I think I’ll go home,’ Rose says.

Dillon stops beside her.

‘Why?’

She shrugs. She smiles.

When she’s gone, he can’t help thinking about that smile. It made her face more than just odd, though still not quite beautiful. She looked happy, but also scared. Like happiness was a cliff you might fall off.

That night, while her students are at their party, and her staff are at the pub, Paula Jackson finally sends a last email and heads home. As she drives, she watches the white line on the dark road. There are not many cars here, on this stretch, at this time. The road curls over the lip of the moors, looping round the town from the squat sixties building that houses her school at one edge to her stone house high on a steep, gardened lane on the other.