Lauren can hear Billy’s mother, Kirsty, in the background.

‘She says we’re going on holiday the day after tomorrow and she’s clearing out the fridge.’ Billy pauses as Kirsty says something else. ‘She’s got some food that you might want to take home.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’m going up to the woods now. To work on the hut some more. Are you coming?’

‘Yeah, OK, I’ll just get ready.’

‘I’ll wait for you.’

She dresses quickly, taking another T-shirt – with white horses galloping across a shore – and jeans from the colourful pile of laundry under her windowsill. The sill itself is strewn with the little wooden animals her father has carved for her: owls, cats and fishes. She knocks quietly on his door again.

‘Dad. I’m going to the woods with Billy.’

There is no answer.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Be fine in a bit.’

‘I’ll bring you back some scones from theirs. Maybe some other food. I’m taking Jameson.’

‘Sorry about the fry-up, love. I’m just not feeling great.’

‘No bother.’ She just wants to be with Billy and the trees.

Lauren scoots down the creaking stairs, whistling for her dog and grabbing her zip-up jacket as she runs.

To get to Billy’s, Lauren takes a shortcut, climbing over a gaping wire fence at the back of the garden that Jameson can scramble through. From there, she cuts diagonally across the edge of the forest and four fields, her wellies sucking against the mud. Three pheasants take flight ahead of her like a gust of autumn leaves. She thinks about the emptiness of the house and her father. She knows she didn’t dream up the previous evening. Sometimes when her father drinks too much he gets very sad or angry, so keeps on drinking until he sleeps and forgets. She can imagine the young woman feeling scared and slipping away, but that was the wrong decision. They live in the middle of nowhere, in northern Scotland. What if she needed their help?

Billy is waiting at the lichened back gate of his garden. He ruffles Jameson’s soft, rust-coloured ears. ‘How are you today, Jameson? How are you?’

Jameson tries to put his paw in Billy’s hand.

They walk up the stony track towards the forest, bordered by spiky whin bushes and birches tangled with old man’s beard. The hilly land stretches into yellows, deep greens and deciduous orange. Jameson is well camouflaged as he sniffs the hedgerow for rabbit holes and badger setts. Lauren jabs around in her pocket among old tissues and the bumpy shell of her pocketknife. She found the knife in her father’s work shed a few weeks ago, a place that had always been forbidden, just like the room by the front door. Her father says it’s a living room ‘for best’, but on the odd occasion someone comes round, they never use it.