For once the sun was out, a pale, unwashed thing. Some of the grass was yellowing, giving off a dry, slightly sweet smell. I trailed up to the gap in the trees. The white ribbon wasn’t there any more. Nor was my cactus. His cactus. There was no evidence of the plastic pot having been smashed into the ground. He’d taken it.

I imagined opening the front door of our cottage and finding a thankyou note on the outside mat in return. Sticking out of half a dead pheasant. He knew where I lived, after all. Yeah, that was never going to happen. Was that it, then? He helps me out, I say thanks, he scuttles off to his hole?

Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he’d like a visitor.

I wound through the forest, my music on, the birds adding in some little turntable scratches. Dark pines yielded to a much older group of trees, their needles feathery and pale red, their trunks mottled. Occasional silver-white trees among them looked like shadows, not-quite-real things, as if they might fade if you touched them. After two tunes, the woods gave way to swathes of long, shaggy grass, the ground rising up here and there to show the mud and stone underneath. The hills were far less terrifying in daylight. I wondered where I’d been sick, adding my own contribution to the textured, marshy colours.

In your face, puddles. I could totally take them now in these stupid lumpen boots and splashed through the ones made by the birdman’s tyre-tracks, my toes staying completely dry. Puddle after puddle. I was so busy aiming for them that I hardly noticed I’d crested another hill and was nearing his place.

A squat, surly block, giving nothing away. If it could have humphed and crossed its arms, it would have. The ground around it looked worn, like old upholstery. Well, I’d come this far. It felt like I’d been walking for days.

The jeep was there, wonkily parked. The curtains were shut again. Everything had a stillness, as if it were coated in glue. I thought about coughing loudly. Instead I stamped up to the door and hung there for a second.

Maybe he had a wife. A boyfriend. A kid who stayed sometimes. I knocked. Waited. Thought about knocking again. I put my ear to the cold wood and the door opened and I jerked back, quick as whiplash, trying to look casual.

The guy’s face looked like it had not long before been scrunched up into a ball and was only just starting to get back to normal. His eyes were gummy and his thick, dark hair stood up like the grass. He looked at me as if I were much further away than I was.

‘All right?’ He said it guardedly. Rock salt in his voice.

The words came out higher than normal. ‘Yeah. I was just …’ Just what? Passing? He’d only opened the door to the width of a hand, and it wasn’t getting any wider. I pushed my sunglasses up into my hair. ‘I thought I’d come and say hello.’