This weed had a tang to it. Definitely not homegrown. It flicked at the back of my throat and my pulse was starting to go all ’90s tribal drumtastic. I let my mind turn to wet cement, imagined it being smoothed out, a trowel going over and over it methodically. And I was working on smoothing the loch down too, erasing every contour, when I saw something in the water.

Ten metres out, further along the shoreline, under the surface. A white shape. I was sure it hadn’t been there before.

It looked like a shirt or a pillowcase – except they would float right on top, wouldn’t they? Maybe it was a seal. A dolphin. That would be amazing, to see a dolphin arc out of the water, like my own flipping private Disney movie. But it just stayed there, not moving, and surely seals and dolphins liked to swim around a bit, unless they were dead.

I stood up into a cloud of midges to get a better look. It was as if a patch of mist had got itself in the wrong place, under the water instead of over it, just hanging there. I thought of clothes again – a sheer dress. It lingered. As I craned my neck, my eyes hit a pole sticking up on a larger headland further east, a way off.

Except it wasn’t a pole. It was someone. A person, standing dead straight, looking out on the loch. Looking out at me.

I almost tumbled off my rock. Another look. Maybe it was a scarecrow. Yeah Polly, a scarecrow without arms and no field to take care of. And scarecrows didn’t move. It – he – moved. Fuck. I turned, quickly, and ducked in among the trees, the loch’s eyes on my back, the person’s eyes on my back, imagining Stef still lounging there on his elbows, laughing, shouting ‘Come baaaack, you slag!’

My ribs were tight. Jesus, that was fucking creepy. It was him. The bird guy. It had to be. He’d been watching me, I swear. His arm had come up. How many guys like that could there be in a place with more trees than people?

By the time I got up to the cottage, my legs were soaked, and bits of the wood – leaves, moss, mud – were stuck to my bare calves. Two of my leopard-skin nails had come off. Little white flowers behind my eyelids every time I blinked.

And I remembered my book, still there on the rocks. Arse.

Once, I sat on the rocks. The day we met properly. Do you remember?

I was looking for stones to skim. The best ones, delicate as bone china, barely registering in my hand. I would never be able to do them justice and they’d be lost forever, like those wishes that people kiss on coins and drop into wells. So I would drop them into the pocket of my skirt and place them on top of each other on my windowsill.