‘Sorry. The heat’s not up to much in this thing.’ Jim tapped a dial near my leg.

‘It’s fine.’ I began doodling on my window. ‘That was very lovely. The waterfall.’ I looked across at him. It was like we were back there again, the two of us, the sound of tons of river pounding on our heads. ‘Thank you.’

He scratched his skull behind his ear for far too long, peering out. ‘You’re fine.’

The rain and the wind gave us something to concentrate on. I sighed, loudly, wondering why he hadn’t turned the engine on yet. Not that I minded. I was perfectly happy sitting here with him, even if I probably did smell like a team of post-match football players.

He had both hands on the wheel and was staring straight ahead. Maybe he was thinking about putting the seat back and giving me what for. I’d drawn a heart on my window without realising and quickly splodged it out before leaning both forearms on the dashboard and looking over at him.

He caught my eye and cleared his throat. ‘Let’s run you back, then.’

Maybe not. He’d seen me in my undies now, after all.

I’d needed to pee for ages, and the sound of the rain coming at us like axe-wielding Vikings didn’t really help.

‘Can you stop?’ I said, above the noise.

‘You OK?’

‘Just stop. Sorry.’

Jim understood, I thought, and pulled over.

I took a deep breath. ‘Back in a sec. If I don’t drown.’

I had to really push at the jeep door to open it. The storm had come from nowhere, someone up above us stirring, furiously, wondering why the wind and the rain wasn’t all mixing together properly. I dashed into the trees at the side of the road, trying to find somewhere he wouldn’t be able to see me, though it was getting darker by the minute. A weird howling, like Becca at the bothy. Fifty Beccas. As I squatted down I started to laugh. This was ridiculous.

I stumbled back to the road and stood behind the jeep for a moment longer, letting the rain coat me like the silver skin in the garden. I was drenched anyway. My arms out, my head back. I think I might have yelled a bit.

Jim was looking at me like I was an escaped mental patient.

I smoothed my hair down and squeezed out the ends. ‘Done,’ I said.

We braked suddenly and I slammed into my seat belt.

‘Ow.’

‘Sorry.’ Ahead of us a massive tree was lying straight across the road, jagged in the headlights. In the darkness you could only just see where it had ripped from its base, torn like a big chunk of farmhouse loaf.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Shit.’

He got out and walked up to it, hands in his pockets. In the headlights he was a big silhouette, the rain spiking down on him lit gold.

The whole road was blocked, the main road down to the head of the loch, to my village. You couldn’t steer round it – the verge shot up steeply to the right, and tipped straight downwards into a precarious bank of dense trees on the left. I thought of the jeep rolling over and over with me rattling around in it, screaming. Or of making a ramp out of planks of wood, haring up it into the air and crashing down on the other side, action-movie style.