‘I’m fine.’ I shake my head, surprised to find that for once, the tears have not automatically appeared. I can hear the opening bars of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! playing in the nearest bar, and wonder if my own heart will ever mend enough for me to give it to someone special.

‘How long?’ Kit murmurs.

‘Almost a year.’ It comes out as a croak.

‘Bloody hell.’ He squeezes me a bit harder. ‘You poor little mite.’

‘It’s OK,’ I say, even though we both know that it’s anything but. He is so close to me now that I’m practically resting my head on his shoulder, but as soon as I become aware of the warmth of him, I feel his phone vibrate in his pocket.

‘Ah,’ he says, extracting it with some difficulty. ‘Bon. Oh, good stuff – she says it’s grand to have a barbie at the yard.’

‘Hooray,’ I declare, but my delivery is weaker than a daddy-long-legs faced with a hairdryer.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Kit says. ‘About your mum. That fucking sucks, if you’ll excuse my language.’

‘I do,’ I assure him, and with a sudden eruption of laughter, I realise that he’s right, too – it does absolutely fucking suck.

‘FUCK DEATH!’ I shout, causing several people to glance around in alarm. Kit, however, looks thrilled.

‘Yeah!’ he cries, getting to his feet and pulling me up to join him. ‘Death, mate, you are a right shithouse – now why don’t you swivel on THIS?’

I splutter with amusement as he holds up a middle finger.

‘I am literally laughing in the face of you, Death!’ I bellow, letting out a scream as Kit grabs both my hands and starts to spin me around. The bars, restaurants and lake all merge into a blur of colour as we whirl, and while I am dimly aware that I must look totally bananas, for the first time in a while, I don’t care. I feel like myself, like the old Genie, the one who thought nothing of dancing as if nobody was watching, and of laughing until she could hardly breathe.

‘Stop!’ I protest, falling into an exhausted, giggling heap on the grass.

Kit joins me, reaching for his beer only to find that he’s drunk it all.

‘Balls,’ he declares, but shakes his head when I offer him a sip of mine.

‘I shouldn’t – I have to drive back to Koru.’

Panting slightly, overcome with a sudden, crushing embarrassment, I find that I have no idea what to say to him. The resulting silence drags on for an uncomfortably long time and, just like that, the moment Kit and I shared slips away out of reach.

25

The day has arrived.