A poem is laminated in a wooden panel along the trail entitled, “What brings you here today?”

Which is a good question. And not one for which I have a ready answer.

Sunlight reflects off the chalk of the cliffs so that their whiteness seems fantastical, like the white of once heavily soiled clothes in detergent ads.

An endless canopy of sky stretches above our heads. It reminds me of a piece of pale blue lace. Delicate. Easily torn.

Below us, a ferry glides out of the port, leaving a trail of white water in its wake, a line drawn between England and France. Between where we are now and where we will be. The present and the future.

Never has the future seemed more unknowable.

Wildflowers are threaded through the scrubby grass that is kept short by grazing horses. They lift their heads at our approach and Dad stops walking, his face static with anxiety. Dad’s fear of animals is a recent development, whereas I have always displayed nervousness around them. The horses are not tethered, and there is nobody in authority—I am thinking of a man in Wellingtons, a farmer perhaps—to supervise them.

“They look...” Dad struggles to find the next word. His eyes crease in concentration and he clicks his fingers as if the repeated noise might jolt the word out of its hiding place in his memory.

“You’re right, Mr. Keogh,” says Iris, walking to the nearest horse and running her hand along its gleaming flank. “They look friendly, don’t they?” The horse tosses its head and stamps its hooves, and I worry that Iris has overestimated the friendliness of the herd, but now she is stroking the horse’s ears, one at a time and the animal stills beneath her touch.

“I have a bag of apples in my backpack,” says Iris. “Can you grab them, Terry?”

I glance at Dad, who, like the herd, looks like he might bolt at any minute.

“It’s okay, Dad, there’s nothing to be worried about,” I say, inching towards Iris’s bag. I stand as far from her as I can and unzip her bag, grope inside for the fruit.

“Do you want to pet him, Terry?” asks Iris. So it’s a him.

And no, I don’t want to pet him.

“Sure,” I say, looking back and beaming at Dad so he can’t see my fear.

“I don’t think...” he begins.

Iris reaches for my hand, draws it towards the animal, places it on his coat. I am surprised at the smooth softness of it. And the smell. A warm, sweet smell. Like worn leather. “Here,” says Iris, handing me an apple. “Put it in the flat of your hand and offer it to him.”

“I’m not sure if...” I think about stepping away, but the horse has smelled the fruit and stretches his neck towards the grip of my hand around the apple. Now I can feel the soft flesh of the animal’s lips and the sensation is like being tickled and I think I laugh and my hand opens and the horse’s mouth opens and I glimpse long, yellow teeth and then the apple is gone and the horse moves away and I realize I haven’t been breathing so I breathe.