I put my lips next to her wet head and spoke to her. What did I say? I don’t know. The words you say to dogs. She put her tongue out and curled it upwards to try to lick my face. The tip of it touched my nose. It was rough and dry.

The water was still rising. I had my back to the stone wall of the gorge now. But I didn’t care any more about drowning. I didn’t want to be alive without Kenny, knowing that I’d sent him to die in the cold water.

And then I remembered something else. Something to do with one of those stories. Another sad one. A small girl selling matches on the streets. Imagine that, someone so poor they had to sell matches? But she’s so cold and so lonely she lights the matches, and the light of the flames makes her less sad.

Why was that story in my head? The ending wasn’t happy …

Matches.

LIGHTER!

I had my mum’s old lighter. In the inside pocket of my jacket. I reached in there with fingers as numb as stone. I found it. I turned the wheel with my thumb twice, and only sparks came. The third time the flame caught. The gold and blue of the burning gas was as bright as the sun, and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I put my frozen fingers almost in the flame, and my fingers ate the warmth. Before I burned myself, I changed hands, letting the flames dance around my other fingers.

“Here, Tina, come, try to get warm,” I said to the little dog. But all she could do was turn her head to look at me for a second before she slumped down again.

After a minute, the metal at the top of the lighter grew too hot to hold. I let go of the plastic button that kept it alight.

Suddenly the world became black. Blacker than it had been before. And I was as scared now of the black as I was scared of the cold and the rising water. I struck the lighter again and lived off its flame for another two minutes. I struck it for a third time and I thought that the flame was thinner, smaller. When I let it go out, I put the hot lighter in between my jumper and my T‑shirt. That was glorious, for a few seconds.

The fourth time, the flame lasted for less than a minute. Then it died, and the darkness was everywhere, and I lost all my hope.

Eighteen

Eighteen