What is my problem? What the hell is wrong with me? I want to lie down under this tree forever. I’m everything and nothing. I matter and I don’t. There has to be more. Then sings my soul. I want to be the old man, sleeping after a good meal and a pint. I want to be Rip Van Winkle. To dream for a thousand years then wake up with a badass beard, half buried in leaves and dried mud. The smell of sap and shit. The flutter of the ash tree. How am I supposed to explain that? If I say anything she’ll piss herself. She’ll say Are you having one of your Lawrencian moments Alex? She’ll suck in her cheeks and raise an eyebrow. That word. She’s been using it since Sons and Lovers last year in English, since I made the mistake of commenting on the bluebells under the trees at the edge of the running track.

‘Ah!’ she said, gripping my arm, ‘the long, blue cavernous bells that broke upon us like the aftermath of a beautiful flood.’

‘What?’

‘Very Lawrencian, Alex.’

And she explained it to me in detail. Defined the term like I was five and she was the Fountain of all Cultural Knowledge.

‘For someone who hates Lawrence, you’re suspiciously good at quoting him.’

‘I can’t help it. What woman could? He seduces me with language. He makes me long to be a sacrifice. I look up to him with dark dilating eyes.’

I look at her. ‘I’m knackered,’ I say. It’s the best I can do.

She picks up one of the travel books and rolls her eyes. ‘Have a nap then if it’ll put you in a better mood. We need to make some decisions soon though. We need to sort the flights out.’

‘I know.’

I take my shoes off and roll up my jeans, lie down with my arms behind my head and my feet in the sun. I close my eyes but I don’t sleep. I think about her, I always think about her. The first time we spoke in high school. A storeroom in the music department. It was raining. Icy, blood-splintering rain. No way I was going out at break time. The prefects patrolled the corridors and checked the toilets. There weren’t many places left to hide. Down some dim steps, strip lights flickering. I went in to the storeroom backwards to check no one was following. I didn’t see her at first. She coughed to announce herself. I jumped and hit my head on the doorjamb.

‘Come to join the resistance?’ She held out a packet of chewing gum like it was a case of cigarettes and she was a film noir bombshell. Her hair was up. Her eye makeup black and smudged.

‘Cheers,’ I said and took a piece and started chewing. I couldn’t believe my luck.