There was another rattling of the gate and she knew he – a skilled climber too – was scaling it. There came the sound of him jumping down, then a moment of silence. She listened to the sound of her own breathing.

‘Effie, I know you’re in here.’ His voice was raised, but also muffled. The green walls loomed around her as she stood in silence, her back against a wall, palms pressed to the leaves as she strained to hear the sound of his footsteps. She consoled herself that if she didn’t know where she was, how could he?

‘Please. I just want to talk,’ he called.

A lonely owl hooted from a distant tree and she turned her face to the sky, staring into a night that had started with such promise. All she had wanted was to show him she could be in his life. She had come to understand – and even accept – the way things were and she would have settled for being just his friend. She needed a friend. Instead she had learnt that not a single moment between them had ever been true . . . that everything had been a lie, that he couldn’t be trusted.

‘I’m sorry, Effie—’

She heard the emotion in his voice.

‘Hurting you was the last thing I ever wanted.’

She shook her head, trying to drown out his words, but a sapphire night wrapped around them like a velvet cloak. They were alone out here.

‘You were all I wanted. And everything I couldn’t have.’

She pressed her hands to her ears, trying to stop the words from reaching her, but she felt them through the earth, on the wind, and the anger that had propelled her from the party collapsed into something frail and brittle, tears she had been holding back beginning to slide down her cheeks at last. She gave a small sniff, wiping her eyes.

It was only a tiny sound—

‘I’m sorry.’

The words were softly spoken, his voice suddenly so close it made her jump. She pivoted and backed away from the wall where she had been standing, but she couldn’t see him. She stared into the hedge as if the leaves might wither and wilt, revealing him, but they remained in all their springy verdancy, blocking them from one another.

The silence held. The wall stood. He was close yet still so far, on the other side.

‘I’m sorry you had to hear about the engagement like that. I wanted to tell you about my . . . situation before I left St Kilda. It was why I wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you that I was going to call it off with her.’

She said nothing. She didn’t move a muscle, she didn’t breathe. He was lying.