They often talked about sex, Corinne sharing her experiences. She was comfortable in her body, a casual sloppiness about her that Beth envied but couldn’t imagine possessing. Corinne flirted with strangers when they were in the Proxi in the village, making eyes at guys queuing for lottery tickets and cigarettes, smiling coyly and twisting a strand of pink hair around her finger. When they sat together just the two of them in the village square, Corinne liked to point out different men and quiz Beth over whether or not she would sleep with them. It was just a game to pass the time, idle speculation. It didn’t mean anything. Although Corinne had claimed to have slept with guys who were older than her. A lot older. Like Bruno.

She knew Corinne was talking to Bruno on the phone now. She could tell from the way her friend changed her voice, her tone, like she was sidling up to him, coquettish and suggestive. Her laugh was different, throatier, less natural. Even her mouth became pouty, her lips full. Beth had met him once on one of their walks. A tall, thin man who might once have been considered handsome but there was a wasted look about him now. He’d been wearing a singlet with jeans and while his arms were muscular in a wiry way, she could make out the mound of a pot belly above his waistband; he spoke with a drawl and his complexion was grey.

She heard her name being mentioned, Corinne asserting something, and she knew the arrangement was being made and felt a corresponding flip of nerves in her tummy. The view from where they were sitting seemed suddenly vertiginous, unreliable. She put out a hand on either side to steady herself against the rock.

‘He said yes,’ Corinne said with excitement. ‘It is all arranged. Tomorrow evening. He’ll be ready.’

Beth didn’t say anything. Her silence made Corinne look up.

‘Beth? Are you okay?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Hey. What’s wrong?’

Beth thought of what her mother had told her, about not getting forced into anything she was uncomfortable doing. She thought of Bruno’s nicotine-stained fingers. Fear sat like a stone in her belly. But then Corinne reached out and touched the back of her neck, her busy fingers moving over the scar.

‘Relax. It’s going to be beautiful. You’ll see,’ Corinne said. The soft reassurance of her voice and the light flutter of her touch working their dark magic. She only wanted to help. Beth desperately wanted to change, and Corinne understood this. A reinvention. It involved stripping away layer upon layer, making herself new. It frightened her but that was the whole point. Fear would awaken courage, and as Corinne always told her, courage was a choice.

‘You will thank me for this later,’ Corinne promised, a smile in her voice as Beth’s nerves quietly vanished.

16