“I wish you could too,” Tom said. They’d met at a party. The room had been packed. It would have been so easy to turn away from her, not towards her.

“The worst part,” Caroline said, “is that I will always worry about you. Even on the days I’m furious with you, I still worry about you. I think I’ll worry about you forever.”

“You don’t need to,” Tom said. “Please don’t.” He intended it apologetically, but now he thought he sounded churlish.

“I’d rather not as well,” Caroline said. “But there it is.”

Tom could offer nothing but a statement of fact. “I should have behaved better. I treated you so badly. Like I—’

“What? Hated me?” Caroline stopped and sniffed. Then she said, “No. It’s yourself you’ve always hated.”

Tom was silent.

“I’ll move on, I know,” Caroline said. “Eventually.”

He recognized her courage, and was moved by it. “You’ll get married. To someone much better.”

“Hope so.” Then she said, suddenly brisk, “I’ll box up your stuff. Where should I send it?”

“I . . . I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know.”

“Right.”

Tom hesitated, remembering the warmth of her in his arms. How funny she was, and how kind. He said, “Do you know, Caz . . .” and couldn’t go on.

“What?”

Tom looked for the right words, but they weren’t there.

There was a long pause, then Caroline said deliberately, “You take care, Tom.”

“And you. Just . . . take care.”

Then it was done. Tom turned the phone off and laid it carefully down on his bedside table. How exhausted you could feel just from staying alive, day after day, year after year. At least Caroline was free now.

He went downstairs to make a sandwich for his lunch, but found he couldn’t eat. Then it came over him again, the restlessness that felt like rage. Feeling the need to be in motion, he put on his jacket and boots and went outside.

The air was fresh and the wind was cold. Tom found his steps taking him north along the road, as though he was going to look for seals with Nicky. The rough moorland stretched out on either side, sloping and uneven, broken with rocky outcrops and patched with bracken the colour of dried blood. In the distance, rugged hills loomed up, blocking the horizon like a mountain range.