I text her to ask if we can meet before she comes back to the bungalow and I suggest the cafe at the top of Devil’s Dyke. I walk there early, so I can gather my thoughts. It’s close to the city but all you can see from here is dazzling green fields, countryside so lush it makes you start humming ‘Jerusalem’.

When she arrives, I see she’s still in the hire car: a Golf GTI. Typical Kerry. I bet she put her foot down on the way to the triathlon, though I can’t imagine she was in a hurry to come back. When she gets out, I’m afraid to look at her face, in case I can see her decision. The last of the daylight is fading and with it, the warmth.

‘Hey,’ she says. We hug out of habit but there’s no kiss. Was that my choice or hers?

‘Hey. Well done. For finishing.’ She texted me the time but I have no idea if it’s good or bad. No wonder I’m going to lose her.

‘Yeah. It was such a buzz.’

‘Did you get a chance to think?’

She nods. Why isn’t she saying what she’s decided? It has to be bad.

Because I don’t know what else to do, I start walking towards the trail, opening the gate. She steps through and I close it behind her, like some Victorian suitor. The shrubs and farmland give off a herbal scent as the air cools. This is what I will remember whenever I smell this again. The night I lost her.

‘Tim—’

‘I told Mum. And she said if I let you go, I’m finished. That I would be nothing without you.’

Kerry turns. ‘Oh, Tim, that’s not true.’

‘So are you ending it or not?’ I brace myself.

‘I just want us to be happy.’ She turns away again and walks slowly, pulling at the greenery along the lane. Now the air smells of wild garlic.

My head throbs and my mother’s words come back to me: you need to fight for her.

‘Please don’t leave. Tell me what it’d take to make you happy.’

As I wait for her to reply, a memory catches me unawares. The very first time I came to this spot was with her and her parents. I was nearly nine years old. We’d been to see the paragliders floating above the valley and all she could talk about was how she’d love to try it. I was more interested in getting home to look up thermal columns in the encyclopaedia.

Afterwards, her mum bought us hot chocolate and dinosaur cake with an entire spiky thagomizer made of icing, and I couldn’t understand why I was getting a treat when it wasn’t even my birthday yet.