Panic surged through me. Maybe he wasn’t going to turn up. Maybe after last time he went home and had a good laugh with his mates about the stupid girl he kissed who then believed him when he said he’d come back. Was that the kind of thing boys did? Sometimes people lied, I knew that. Dad was always saying that no one could be trusted, and he’d often point out particularly bad behaviour from men in films and books, reminding me that it was exactly the kind of thing he was protecting me from. Look at how Heathcliff behaved towards Isabella, he’d say. Or what happened to Butterfly in the opera! Or Tess – look at how men treated her and how miserable it made her! And Carmen! What a tragic end she had! You wouldn’t want anything like that, would you? he’d warn. Maybe Fred was one of the bad men Dad was so desperate to protect me from. Maybe this was all a big mistake. Maybe I should have never agreed to meet him.

Just as I’d decided that the whole thing was at best a stupid idea and at worst, entirely reckless, and was about to stomp back up to the house, cursing myself, I heard the sound of an engine and Fred’s van appeared.

Brushing away the angry tears which had been threatening I tried to arrange myself to look alluring and as if I was never in any doubt that he would turn up, although I imagined by now it was probably obvious that I was hot and flustered. I smiled.

‘Hello,’ I said, just about managing to keep my voice even.

‘Hello, you,’ he said as he stepped out of the van. ‘Here we are again.’

I blushed. ‘Yeah.’

He went round to the back of the van, opened the doors and pulled out a bag.

I pictured Dad, back at the house. Oh God. I wondered what he was doing now? Being down here, alone with Fred, was such a risk. But I had thought about what I would do on the off-chance that he went up to my room; I could tell him I’d gone out for a walk. He wouldn’t like it, because I hadn’t asked or let him know where I would be, but it was better than …

‘I brought a few things for us,’ Fred said, spreading out a blanket and dropping down to the ground. ‘Don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink.’

‘OK,’ I said, suddenly breathless.

He pulled out a bottle of wine and twisted the top off.

‘It undoes like that?’ I asked.

He looked at me strangely. ‘You never seen a screw-top before?’

‘Uh – yeah,’ I lied. ‘Just normally I’ve seen bottles with corks.’

‘Posh round yours then. Red OK?’ he asked, pouring it into a plastic cup and handing it to me.