‘I’m sorry,’ she says and reaches up to touch my face. She pauses for a minute and I just wait. Drinking her in. Then she’s kissing me. Really kissing me. Not like the other times, not pushing me away or taking my hand off her back. This time she’s pulling me closer, until there’s no space between us. Her nose against mine, her body pushing me back against the wall, her hands in my hair. I can’t think. My hands are everywhere. I can’t get enough. She pulls away and we’re both breathing like we’ve done the hundred-yard dash. The craggy stone digging into the back of my head. I laugh. The surprise of it. In the house they’re singing Lassie from Lancashire and May starts humming along. She can’t hold a tune to save her life.

‘You should never have come round in the first place,’ she says.

‘Well, I’m bloody glad I did now.’ I reach for her.

She laughs. ‘Arthur,’ she says.

‘Why don’t you come in for a minute and say hello?’

‘Look at me, I’m a right state.’

‘They won’t care.’

‘I have to get back. Mum doesn’t know I’m here.’

I want to ask her about her dad and the boy but her face is so peaceful right now. I want to ask her to run away with me and never come back but this isn’t the time for it. In years to come I don’t want the memory to be poisoned by the smell of cow shit.

‘Come on, I’ll walk you home.’

‘Alright.’

We miss the last chorus of the song running round the corner of the house, jumping over the puddles in the farmyard. I help her up, over the gate and into the lane. The hedges are all overgrown, big long branches waving around above us in the dark. She takes my hand and I don’t care about her mother or her father. I don’t care about a single thing before this moment. Everything else is just history.

9:23 pm

I’ll get into bed if you let me give her a message.

Lights flashing    dry hands

people are screaming            somewhere.

What sort of place is this? Don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. He leadeth me beside the still water. He leadeth me, he leadeth me

somewhere.

I’ll get into bed when I want, when you give me back my buttons and feathers and     leaves. Tell her to listen, tell her to come. Don’t   do    that

what sort of place, what sort of racket are you running    I only want to tell her I only want to tell her

I used to play in the puddles with Ned and she brought the wrong boy