‘You just went out. Cold.’

Had he carried me up here? I put a palm flat on the bed and sat up. The roof was really close to my head. I could feel groovemarks in my cheek, as if Benji had driven one of his old toy cars up and down my face. I’d left mud streaks from my boots on the covers.

He rested an elbow on the side of the bed and then removed it. ‘You just stood up, and climbed up here, and …’ he looked at me simply. ‘It’s been a couple of hours.’

I scrunched a fistful of my fringe. Jesus.

He was looking at my wrist. ‘Did someone hurt you?’

I didn’t have time to pull my sleeve back over the cuts. ‘No.’

‘What’s that, then?’

I scratched the skin above my lip. ‘A bear?’ I blinked at him, hoping that I looked faintly adorable. ‘Do you get bears in Scotland?’

He didn’t smile back, staring at me, hard, and chewing the inside of his cheek.

I flipped my eyes to the wall, to the bed, my neck beginning to burn up.

‘Don’t do that to yourself,’ he said.

Time to go. I began to shunt over the bed towards him. He disappeared and I completely ungracefully clambered down the ladder, nearly falling off it. My head swam. The walls were angling in, tilting from the top.

‘Thanks for the tea.’ The words sounded far away.

He stood in the middle of the room, scratching the back of his head. ‘You’re all right.’

I looked up at the bed, which seemed to be tilting towards me too, turned around in a full circle, like Tyger after his tail, and spotted the door.

‘Do you know where you’re going?’

‘I’ll just follow your tracks to the road.’ My fingers found the doorframe, but the handle seemed to have disappeared.

‘Do you know what road it is?’ His voice was getting fainter.

I put my face to the wall. It was a beautiful cool stone. It was Lottie’s hand. I rolled my forehead against it.

‘It’s a few miles, you know.’ A soft jingle. ‘I’ll take you.’

The jeep smelled musty, like wet dog. Dead dog. It was the sort of battered, bashed-in thing you’d take on a low-budget Kenyan wildlife tour and was spattered with mud up to the windows. It had no proper back seat. There were insects mashed up on the windscreen, collecting at the bottom like flotsam after a storm. My stomach was starting to feel really, really violent. It was boiling. Eyafjallawhatsit. The track made us jerk, limp as rag dolls, not that he seemed to notice. He kept glancing over at me. Well, don’t bloody talk then. What was he, a monk? I opened my mouth to speak, and—

He stopped just in time. I was sick from my seat, belt still on, half hanging out of the door. That awful sound, like someone discovering their voice for the first time. I unclicked my seatbelt and staggered down, wiping my eyes and my mouth with the back of my hand.