Harriet massaged the bridge of her nose for a moment and clenched her jaw before going over to him, stilettos stabbing the floor. She whispered something to him that the rest of them couldn’t hear.

‘It’s not bloody good enough!’ He continued in the same loud tone. ‘You’re a bunch of tech geniuses who don’t approve of Wi-Fi?’

There were a few sniggers. Harriet sighed and turned to them all.

‘Respectfully – yes, you did sign up for this. No one reads the small print, do they? And you can use a phone; there are plenty provided, they’re just not yours.’ Harriet paused and smiled kindly at the group. ‘And a bit of a tech detox doesn’t seem to have done anyone any harm. Now, are there any other issues people want to raise, or may we proceed?’

To her own surprise as much as Harriet’s, Thea raised her hand.

Chapter 13

She didn’t know why she’d done it.

Harriet had asked and up had gone her hand, seemingly of its own accord.

She blamed the extra sleep.

They were now sat on the green. Nearby, the monastery gift shop was meant to look like a picturesque cottage with its peaked red-tiled hat. But there was nothing picturesque about it. Its wooden front door, warped by damp, bowed out slightly as if the whole place was a pus-filled spot, holding its wrongness inside, the outside skin stretched so tight it could pop and ooze at any moment.

It wasn’t forbidden to spend their lunch and breaktimes outside, but it was late October and, invariably, Rosie and Thea found themselves alone on blanket-covered wet grass even though the weather wasn’t too cold.

Normally, in her sleepless world, the hours after lunch were a dirty water stain on the day: grey, shapeless, ever spreading. Today, however, Thea gazed around her with a new clarity: eyesight sharp, brain sharper.

‘What’s the big deal about outdoor shoes anyway?’ Rosie asked.

How could Thea explain it to Rosie? That sometimes, when she was in the Centre, she felt that the walls would suck her in, the glossy cream closing over her completely, sealing over her mouth when she tried to scream?

The face in the monastery window.

‘I just like getting some fresh air,’ was all she could articulate. She’d thought about telling Rosie what she’d seen but, however she played it in her mind, it just sounded silly. No one was there. A few carefully worded questions to Rory one day had confirmed that the monastery was abandoned and had been since the last monk had shuffled out in the 1980s.

‘Yep, well, it is certainly fresh today.’ Rosie pulled another blanket tighter across her shoulders. The sky didn’t look fresh at all; it looked grimy, like over-handled dough. ‘I’ll come though, if you want to go for a walk. Could use the exercise.’