McAvoy crouches on the shingle and sludge and watches Roisin surface, her dark hair breaking the surface of the ale-coloured water like a shark’s fin. She treads water, getting her bearings, squirting out a rainbow of water in McAvoy’s direction when she sights him. She’s ten yards away, treading water, steam rising from her goose-pimpled flesh.

‘Warm rain,’ she shouts, making her way towards him. Her voice is almost lost above the sound of the rain striking the water, striking the leaves of the trees that overhang the little pool. ‘If I hold up a teabag do you think we’d get a decent brew?’

She rises from the water. Stands, naked, head tipped back, catching the rain on her tongue. McAvoy blushes. Looks away, bashful, then chides himself for being so bloody stupid and swivels his gaze back to where she stands. He’s dressed in sodden jeans and a linen shirt, which clings to his body like bubble gum. He has his arms wrapped around her clothes, protecting her garments like a carrion bird protecting a meal. The wound on his face has healed well but there is still a noticeable crevice down his cheek, cutting through the edge of his beard. It gives him a somewhat piratical look that Roisin delights in, even though his big sad-cow eyes betray his gentleness up close.

‘Wild garlic,’ she says, sniffing the air. Barefoot, she crosses the stones. Squats down and kisses him, hungrily, her mouth all cigarettes and rain. ‘I love that smell. Makes you feel all sort of dozy – like the air’s a bit heavier and you could snuggle down under it.’

McAvoy opens his arms. She sits between his legs, wrapped up in him. He drops his chin to the crown of her head. Kisses her lightly, at the temples, the cheek.

‘I love your words,’ he says, softly. ‘You should write poetry.’

She grins. Slaps him on his forearms. ‘Me? Poetry? I just talk. Just say what I see.’

‘That’s what poetry is. Just a description of feelings. Of things. But in a language that, I don’t know … speaks to your marrow. To the places inside you. It’s like music at a very specific frequency.’

‘It’s one of the things I got right,’ says Roisin, the rain running down her shoulders. She wrinkles her nose, enjoying the sensation. ‘I knew you’d read poetry. I could just tell.’

‘I’ve never studied it,’ says McAvoy, apologetically. ‘I just like the way some poems make me feel.’

‘How do you study poetry?’ asks Roisin, baffled. ‘You read it. You like it or you don’t. Who’s that one you keep mentioning?’

‘Heaney,’ says McAvoy. ‘In your accent, it would be sublime.’

She squirms in his grasp, looks back up at him. ‘Sublime? I don’t know anybody who uses that word. I like it.’

‘If we’re making Hull our home you might like Larkin. Bit gloomy and some of the sensibilities have changed a little, but he understands people better than most.’