‘I thought I wasn’t going to make it in time.’

‘What now?’

‘Let’s go. You need to get home. I’m just keeping you company some of the way.’

She put on her dark glasses and slid a tape into the machine. He leant back in his seat. She could feel he was looking at her but she didn’t look back; she kept her eyes on the road ahead as it streamed past her and the sun rose in the sky, tearing through the last of the gauzy clouds.

‘When are we going to stop?’ she asked at last.

‘You decide.’

‘Are you hungry?’

‘No.’

‘Thirsty?’

‘No.’

‘Luke?’

‘Mmmm?’

‘I feel nervous, all of a sudden. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to do this.’

‘I think the trick is not to think about how to do it.’

‘It’s been so long.’

‘For me too.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘You haven’t touched me yet.’

‘I’m waiting till I can’t wait any longer.’

An hour later, he laid her down on the baked earth. There was a rock against one shoulder, digging into her. Her hair was full of moss and dust, and twigs snapped against her skin. Insects crawled over her. The sun crashed through the branches of the trees and shattered on her eyelids. Her skull was flooded with blazing sky and fractured light. He pulled off her shirt; his hands were full of her soft, pale breasts and his mouth was against the pulse in her neck. He peeled off her jeans. She flung her arms out wide, crucified and gasping on the stony ground, and when he put his hand between her legs she shuddered. She kissed the corner of his mouth, bit into his soft lips till she tasted blood, dug her fingernails into his back and listened to the groan of pleasure that she ripped from him. She felt his weight and wanted to be crushed; she gripped his moleskin head and stared into his murky eyes and watched him watching her as she broke apart again and again, hearing herself cry out with a voice she’d never heard before. She was a stranger at last. A stranger in a foreign land.

Later, they lay facing each other, damp with sweat, and he very delicately picked bits of wood and dry leaves out of her hair.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured, blinking up at him.

‘I’m hungry now.’

‘Mmm. Me too.’

‘We can buy a picnic and stop somewhere.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Midday.’

‘I’ve got to get at least halfway there today.’

‘Let’s find a good point on the map where we can stop for the night. Then tomorrow, you go on to Calais and I’ll get a train to Montpellier.’

‘A night together, that’ll be nice.’ She ran a thumb over his lip. ‘Isn’t this weird?’

‘Is it?’

‘I think it is.’

‘You’re possibly right.’

‘Do you do this kind of thing often?’