She remembers the feel of Titch’s hand in hers.

She’s going to London on Wednesday. She has another job. And she’s decided, now, that once it’s finished she won’t go back to school, or to Graeme’s.

‘We’re going to get a house,’ she says. ‘With a sofa.’

On Saturday, Graeme is away. Rose takes the L-plates off and drives down the narrow road that goes over the moor in her little car, with Aaron on the cushions at the back. She has the test on Tuesday. When she gets the licence, then they will be ready.

In the meantime, she loves driving. She puts the windows down. The air fills the little car.

They go slowly. The road is fringed with heather and bracken. The bracken is starting to wither and redden. The sky is blue, but streaked with thin trails of cloud, and the wind is fresh. The road dips sharply into a little gully, and the motor of the little car labours to climb out again the other side.

In the back seat Aaron is trying to skin up. The car jolts and the tobacco scatters.

‘Can you stop?’ he says.

Rose leans forward over the wheel. She peers through the windscreen. They pull into a grass layby.

They leave the car. They follow a path.

‘Come on,’ says Aaron.

Now they leave the path.

They walk across the moor. The heather is high and springy. When their feet brush over it, tiny insects rise, half-hearted, already dying as winter nears. Ahead of them is the rock, standing high, wind-carved.

Aaron walks ahead. The sun is warm, the wind cool. His legs are thin. He moves like a colt, ungainly, but with the promise of grace. Maybe he just needs more time, Rose thinks.

They approach the rock. Aaron stops, bends. Kneels. He has something in his shoe. Rose walks forward. Puts one hand to the warm stone. Rounds the corner. Stops.

Jack squats, grinning, in the sun-drenched nook.

Rose stands. He is wearing shorts and a grey T-shirt. His legs folded under him, his back arced forward as he rests on his heels. His calves are spattered with mud. His arms hang down in fluid ropes of muscle. A wet V of sweat is on his back, and his short hair is wet. His face is red, and his eyes wide and hungry with exertion.

Behind her, Aaron draws in.

‘Smoke?’ he says.

The three of them sit in the shelter of the rock. Aaron skins up. Rose sits in the middle. Jack has rolled back from his haunches and rests his back against the stone.

Rose can smell the peat, the stone, the sweat drying on Jack. His knee touches her leg. She moves.

He smiles. His eyes stay hard and hungry.

‘How’s London?’ he says.

She shrugs.

‘I bet you tell him more than that.’

She shrugs.

The moor dips towards the valley ahead of them. You can see the green scar of the treetops. Beyond it, moorland rolls on.