‘Is it raining?’

‘Is it not?’

We sat on the top of the hill, and Joe pulled his hood up while I took my sweatshirt off. It was wonderful up here. The sea glittered green and pale blue below us. The sun shone across it, making a golden path to the horizon. The town was hidden in the valley, and the sky was huge and blue, the grass bright, bright green. It was like being in a child’s picture, a drawing made by Coco. Green grass, blue sky, greeny-blue sea. And Joe, and me. A boy, and a girl, side by side.

‘What does it look like?’ I said.

‘It’s drizzling,’ he said, ‘and the sky’s grey. The sea’s grey. The grass is muddy.’

We laughed at that. Then we just lay back and talked. I told him that Jack Lockett had asked me out again. ‘I said no, of course,’ I said. ‘I mean, politely. I said I’d like to be friends, and he knew what I meant. I only want you, Joe Simpson.’

He smiled at me for a long time when I said that. We talked about the seagulls that were soaring over both of us. We talked about the boats I could see, the walkers who passed him and gave him a worried look as he lay alone on a cliff in the rain. We talked about our childhoods, what we could remember of them.

He called his mum, and this time she answered her phone, and I listened to his side of the conversation, while putting my hand through his.

‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Yeah. No, I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice today. I miss you, Mum. I love you. And Dad, and Gus. I love all of you. And the kids Gus will have. The girls. Don’t worry, Mum. You need to be happy, no matter what. I’m glad you’re doing your yoga course. You should go to India.’

When he put his phone in his pocket, though, he was smiling. He lay back and grinned up at the sky. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Now I’m ready. As ready as I can be. So, do you want to go to the moon one day?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It would take too much fossil fuel, and I don’t think there’s much of a mood for that. There are so many other things to focus on.’

‘We all thought that in the twenty-first century there’d be a lot more going to the moon.’

‘What do you think it’d be like up there?’

He closed his eyes.