‘Dunno. Three hundred years or so?’

A lovelorn miner, covered in rock dust, making trinkets for his sweetheart in the dark.

‘It’s definitely your turn now,’ I said.

Fraser was running his hand along the scratchings on the wall and flicked two fingers to his temple, as though I was his sergeant major.

‘You can’t distract me by being Indiana Jones or whatever.’

He twisted round. ‘Who said I’d forgotten?’

‘Fine. Dare you to strip.’

The torchlight gave his face a waxy glow. ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’

‘Yup.’

‘It’s pretty cold.’

I handed him the bottle.

He took a regretful in-breath. ‘Can’t do much more. Not if I’m driving.’

‘Oh well,’ I said, with extreme brightness.

Fraser grabbed me and kissed me with zero shyness. Damp walls, damp air, damp tongues.

I tugged at his jumper. ‘Right. Off.’

He brought it, along with his T-shirt, over his head. I shone the torch at him. Ribs. Nipple ring.

His stomach flinched from the light. ‘Sooner do this outside, really.’ He glanced at the walls. ‘Bit creepy down here.’

I put the torch under my chin and glared at him.

‘I’m not trying to get out of it,’ he said, laughing, and I followed him back out of the cave.

The dull Scottish sky seemed as bright as a desert. I took his T-shirt and jumper off him. They were warm.

He looked around. ‘Better not be any mineralogists around here.’

‘Ah, they’d love it. Getting their rocks off.’

‘Ha ha.’

I hooked a finger in the belt-loop of his jeans, and pulled him towards me a step. ‘Come here, you.’

‘Where’s your dog?’

I looked at the log. ‘Fuck.’

I called out for Tyger. My voice sounded more and more ridiculous, each repeat of his name sprouting wings, heading over the horizon on a one-way ticket. Fraser, who had dressed again, came back from the archway, shaking his head. We looked everywhere, all the places we’d been and further. It didn’t make sense. Tyger was a complete sissy, the most pathetic dog in the history of the universe. He practically cried when he saw a cat. He always stayed put when he was left outside a shop, simply because he was absolutely terrified.

We looked for an hour, and then we sat and waited. He had to come back.

At the rescue home, Benji had wailed into Lottie’s crotch at every new cage until Tyger’s. A scraggy mixture of Havanese and, who knows, a dormouse or something, and the first one to look at Benji and not bark. Benji had pointed at him and said ‘Tiger.’ Wrong on all counts, but Tiger he remained and I changed the spelling, thinking I was being well erudite.

A mist was coming down.

‘Polly. I’m really sorry. I have to get the car back.’ Fraser gently took the vodka bottle away from me as I was taking another gulp and it splashed down my top. ‘Why don’t we come back tomorrow?’

‘Fuck tomorrow.’