Her voice is bright but her words are slurred, pooling together like spilt mercury. It takes me a while to adjust to the gloom, but then I see her, sitting cross-legged in the corner.

“I’m sorry.” I twist away, shielding my view with a hand. “I didn’t realise—”

“It’s fine. I’m comfortable with being naked.” She pauses. “Sorry, I forgot you’re an outsider. You can look now.”

When I turn back she’s clutching a blanket to her chest. Isaac is standing beside her, his back to the wall, smoking. The scent of tobacco does little to mask the smell emanating from the bucket at his feet.

“Is there anything you’d like to ask Paula, Emma?” He asks the question casually, but there’s a tension to the way he’s standing – ramrod straight, with one arm crossing his body, gripping his side.

“Are you okay?” It’s feeble but it’s the best I can manage.

“I’m fucking wonderful!” Paula laughs again.

“Did you agree to be locked in here?”

I expect her to look at Isaac. Instead, she stares me straight in the eye. “Yes.”

I stare into the gloom, unsure what to say next. Even if she didn’t come here of her own volition, Paula is not about to admit that to me with Isaac listening in. His presence fills the hut.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Paula stands up suddenly and lurches towards me. The blanket falls from her body but she doesn’t stoop to pick it up. “Don’t pity what you don’t understand.”

“I don’t. But you’re right, I don’t understand what’s going on.”

She glances down at my hands, knotted together in front of me. “That’s because you’re still rooted in your old life. You’re still hanging on to the thoughts, feelings and values you think are normal but actually make you desperately unhappy. How old are you, Emma?”

“Twenty-five.”

She takes another step forward until her face is millimetres from mine. “And for how many of those years have you felt truly content?”

I fight the urge to cover my nose with a hand. I can smell alcohol on her breath but there’s something else too, a rancid scent I can’t identify.

“Some.”

“Some?” She smiles, her teeth and the whites of her eyes dull and grey in the darkness. “Or none? Because you can lie to yourself all you like about the value of friendship and the importance of family, but you will never know true contentment until you let go of your attachments.”