It was during her visit to ‘the Henge’ that a newcomer hooked up with the band. His name was Alan, and over the course of that day and the next Chrissie found herself spending more and more time with him. He was about her age, slim and good-looking, with blond hair and blue eyes like hers. His personality was endearing and he had a sharper mind than some of the folks she’d been hanging out with lately, the Rohans and Galadriels. Alan didn’t roll up a joint or whip out a Tarot pack at the first excuse, or tell you what colour your aura was, or claim to be a reincarnation of someone from Arthurian legend. She found him quite attractive, and she sensed that he liked her too.

On the second night at the campsite near Stonehenge, Chrissie and Alan sat in her tent, shared a bottle of wine by the light of her gas lantern and talked for hours. She told him a little about her life in London, but she felt so drawn to him that she avoided recounting the torrid tale of Gerald and Annabel, not wanting him to think she was on the rebound. Instead she switched track and described her childhood and her family, surprising herself at how candidly she could open up to him. She’d been an only child, she explained, and life with her parents had been an unhappy period from which she’d been glad to escape. Her mother was remarried now. Chrissie disliked her step-father and seldom got in touch. She hadn’t seen either of her parents for a long time. And now here she was, she confessed, at a crossroads and not really knowing what the future held. Happiness, she hoped, and love, and a new start.

‘What about you?’ she asked when she became self-conscious that she was talking too much. ‘Tell me all about yourself.’

‘Oh, there’s not really much to tell,’ he said modestly as he topped up their wine glasses. ‘Studied languages at university, came away without any clue about what to do with my life. I headed south, and before I knew it I was in the south of France, where I somehow ended up teaching English.’

‘You speak French?’

‘Mais oui,’ he said. The way the lantern light pooled in the dimples in his cheeks when he smiled made Chrissie want to lean across and kiss him.

She hoped that her blush wasn’t too obvious. ‘I’d love to travel around the south of France. What made you come back?’