‘Yes, of course, but we don’t have to. There’s no hurry. We can wait.’

She tightens her arms around him and nibbles his earlobe. Whispers hot breath against his cold skin. ‘I can’t.’

Then from somewhere nearby there’s a snap. The sound of a breaking twig or a branch. He stops kissing her. Looks behind him in the direction of the noise. ‘What was that?’

‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘You’re hearing things.’ She cajoles him with her hand on the side of his face, turning him back to her, and he forces away the feeling that somebody is watching them.

Her face is serious for a moment, then she takes hold of him and guides him into her, and he moans softly.

Afterwards they stand entwined. Her arms tight around his shoulders. The water is cold and they are both shivering, her teeth chattering softly.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘Are you?’

He kisses her again by way of an answer.

‘I love you,’ she says.

He hesitates. Feels as if his chest is being cut open to expose his heart. He’s never said those words to a girl before. What will it mean if he does? He decides not to care.

‘I love you too.’

He looks up at the house. ‘Which room is yours? I want to be able to imagine you sleeping.’

She kisses him and then points to her bedroom window.

They swim over to the steps. She climbs out first. He follows. As he does he hears a noise. Not an animal or a bird. A person. A sob or a faint shout? He listens. But the noise doesn’t come again. When Edie presses her warm lips between his shoulder blades the noise is forgotten.

She finds a damp towel on one of the sun loungers and places it on the grass. They lie down on it. Their fingers play lightly with each other. Her head rests on his chest and her free hand trails his stomach.

‘We should run away.’

‘Run away?’

She nods.

‘Isn’t that what children do?’

She bats him gently. ‘I mean it. I thought getting expelled would be the end of it. That I could leave school and get on with my life but they want to kidnap me and make me take exams I don’t need.’

‘How did you get expelled anyway?’

She shrugs. ‘It wasn’t hard. Not after Eleanor slapped Veronica Young-Newell at speech day.’

He laughs.

‘Seriously,’ she replied. ‘You can’t even imagine. After that it was easy. Graffiti in the loos was the final straw.’

‘What did you write?’

‘I couldn’t think of anything clever so in the end I just wrote fuck you all, bitches.’

With the mist finally lifted her features are clear in the moonlight and he wonders at her beauty as he traces the line of her nose and mouth with his finger.