After lowering her head way down to see beneath the thick upper leaves she got up and came to Gertrude and whispered into her ear, ‘It’s not them.’ Then she turned and continued climbing. Newman felt Gertrude’s fingers relaxing. The girl was moving a little way from them now, for they had slackened their pace. Ahead and above them they saw the top of the hill and the outline of a giant black tree against the sky. As they approached something white showed at the foot of the tree. They saw the girl halt beside the tree, and in a moment they came up to her and stared at the flattened bed of newspapers on the ground. The girl leaned over and picked up something and walked away from the tree and stopped where the tree’s shadow ended in moonlight. ‘Newman saw she had a small whiskey bottle in her hand. Gertrude made no move to go to her and they stood that way for a while watching the girl who was reading the label. Gertrude was looking around, not at the girl any more. The girl dropped the bottle and came over to them. She took a thoughtful breath, and said quietly, ‘They were here.’

She turned her head surveying the dark slopes below them. ‘Would you come with me? There’s a place they might have gone for a drink. Please, I gotta get her home. I just gotta. Please, Missis,’ she said, threatening to cry.

‘Go ahead,’ Gertrude whispered. Newman quivered at the low languor of her voice. The girl started down the way they had come. Gertrude and Newman turned and followed. In a moment the deep blackness of the hillside swallowed them again. They could not see the girl now. Newman waited for Gertrude to hurry a little, or to call out for the girl. Their steps slowed. And then they stopped and Newman felt Gertrude’s body relaxing and he moved and stood in front of her. She was a foot downhill and he above her and taller now. He managed to take hold of her arm and instantly she slipped her other arm about him and he was kissing her lips and her perfume streamed into him as though the mouth of the bottle had opened under his nose.

Staring up through the leaves of the tree he could see the faint glow of light that the city surrounding the park threw up against the sky. His body felt disconnected from him, numb, like his jaw at the dentist’s.

‘God!’ she exhaled softly. She was shaking her head from side to side. It was the first word either of them had spoken in half an hour.

He turned and looking at the side of her face tried to compose a few words. His sense of pity was so intense that it stifled him.

‘God,’ she exhaled again, and turned her head to him. ‘Where’d you ever learn your ways?’

‘I …’

Before he could begin his apology her face moved up to his and she kissed his lips and he shivered. Then she let her head rest on the grass again. ‘God, we shouldna done it. You just swept me off my feet, y’know? You just swept me away.’ She laid the back of her hand over her eyes.