I force my mind away from the past and try to focus on the present. On the light-dappled ground and the sound of the leaves crackling in the wind; the sensation of warm sunshine on my bare limbs and the brilliant blueness of the sky above. Grief is black crayon scribbled across a painting, a cold empty room with a locked door. If love is the light, then grief is its shadow, and where there is one, there must be the other. I know that if I did not love Anna and Suki as much as I did – and still do – then I wouldn’t feel their absence as keenly. But would I sacrifice that simple happiness so I could avoid the agony that later followed? No, I would not.

‘Genie.’

Kit is standing right beside me. I didn’t see him approaching.

‘Sorry,’ I say, blinking away tears. ‘I was miles away.’

‘A bit like your Frisbee,’ he jokes, but his tone is tentative rather than teasing. The others are up ahead on the crest of a small hill, and as Kit and I stare up, Allie beckons an impatient hand at us.

‘Chill out, woman,’ he calls up with a frown, before turning to face me.

‘She’s in a right stinker today,’ he mutters.

I wonder how I would feel if my boyfriend had invited a strange foreigner he barely knew to spend the afternoon with us, and decide that Allie has at least a smidgeon of justification for being a little put out.

‘Have you two been together long?’ I ask, as we stroll over to retrieve my errant Frisbee.

‘Me and Allie?’ Kit crinkles his brow. ‘I reckon it’s coming up to almost three years. Feels like longer, though,’ he adds, with a snuffle of laughter.

‘Gosh,’ I say, unsure how to respond. ‘That’s a long time.’

Kit lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug.

‘I guess. We all went to school together, me, Griff and Allie, and then she got a job at the stables at around the same time I started helping out. It kind of just happened, you know? But I tell you what, Griff was not best pleased when he found out that his best mate had started carrying on with his little sister.’

I glance up towards Griff, who is busy teaching Tui how to make Beavis jump up for a stick.

‘He seems nice,’ I remark, thinking as I do that ‘nice’ is a terrible word – so vanilla.

Presumably because he feels guilty for telling me his girlfriend was in a ‘stinker’, Kit then says, ‘Allie is a cool girl. It’s not like her to be so mardy, but maybe I deserve it. I’m not gonna win an award for boyfriend of the year anytime soon, that’s for damn sure.’