“Isn’t that for me to decide?”

“Oh God.” He stroked her cheek, let his fingers trail down her neck to shiver against the warm skin of her collarbone. Her fingers fumbled with his buckle. “No, no, no, this is a terrible idea.” His hand slid beneath her clothes and caressed her belly, craving the soft female warmth of her. “Ava, please, I don’t know if I can stand this.”

She nipped at his lip. “I think you’re tough enough.”

“We can’t. We shouldn’t. Not now. The people we love are out there somewhere in the cold.”

“I know.” Her touch was unbearably sweet. “But we can’t find them. We can’t help them. We’re trapped here. All we can do is make the most of the time we’ve got.”

“I want to,” he admitted. “I do. So much. But we shouldn’t.”

“You said you’d spend the rest of your life making it up to me,” she whispered. She was pressed tightly against him now, her skin against his. His fingers caressed the long smooth curve of her back. “But you don’t have the rest of your life. You only have the rest of mine. You made me forget about that yesterday. Make me forget again.”

He closed his eyes. “I don’t think I can.”

“Don’t you? Let’s see.”

And within moments he found that he could, he absolutely could, and once he got started he couldn’t imagine stopping. She put the light out and turned off the heater and the darkness that surrounded them was all-consuming. He tried to be gentle and slow but he couldn’t. If it wasn’t rough and desperate there would be time to think, and he couldn’t bear to think, not about any of it. He only wanted to feel. From the way she clawed at his back and hissed a single vicious obscenity in his ear, he guessed she was driven by the same frantic need. Two strangers, seeking and giving comfort, in the brief space before the end.

Afterwards they lay twined closely together in the cramped bunk bed, her hair in his mouth and a cool damp draught of air stealing the warmth from his exposed back and shoulder.

He woke from dreamless oblivion, recreating the world around him in a series of careful steps. Here he was in the beach hut, with Ava in his arms. His right arm had gone to sleep with the weight of her head resting on it. It was very cold. When he pulled the covers up over them both, he felt the dampness of tears on her cheeks.

“What is it? Tell me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Please tell me. You helped me.”

“I’m scared.”

“For Finn and Alicia?”

“For me. I’m scared to die, Donald.”

He had nursed his wife through her final weeks on this earth and he still had no idea what to say to her. He stroked her cheek instead.

“What if this is all there is? What if there’s nothing on the other side? What if all there is, is the dark?”