I want to ask Jamie what he meant before, but as if reading my mind, Jamie says, “I will explain; I promise. But . . .” With a rueful smile he gestures at Carrie, struggling at the front door with her keys, then at Fiona, possibly passed out in the passenger seat. “Can I pop round for coffee sometime?” He smiles gratefully at my nod and touches my arm gently. “Night, then.”

“Night.” He’s turning away when his words from earlier register with me—She shouldnae really drink. Does he mean she’s on some kind of medication? I’m suddenly appalled at myself. Did I really just threaten a mentally vulnerable individual? Then Carrie manages to open the front door, allowing a slice of yellow light to wash out over the driveway. It’s the only light I can see in the 360 degrees of darkness that surrounds this house, and I feel the impact of that. We are a long way from city-living here, from the kind of living I’m used to, with an untold number of people within a couple of hundred feet who could potentially be called on for help should the situation warrant it. Here I could scream to the heavens and not a soul would come running. Our very closest neighbors are a good mile away. Even in a car, that would mean several minutes at least before help arrived—and that’s supposing you could actually raise the neighbor on the phone in the first place, given the dodgy reception . . .

Jamie is climbing back into his seat now. “Thanks again for the lift,” I call.

“Anytime.” I watch his taillights disappear down the drive. The night is still, with only the fading engine sounds disturbing it. There are stars in the sky in a way that you never see in the city, thousands and thousands of them, in sprinkles here and cloudy nebulas there. I can’t reconcile the serene beauty of this nightscape with the roiling, burning furnace of gases that science tells me is the cause of these elegant pinpoints of light. I watch the sky for a few minutes longer. Nothing moves.

The Manse that I eventually enter is warm; I feel its heat encircle me and instantly I’m yawning. Carrie is already in the kitchen, filling up the kettle. She’s put the radio on low on some kind of channel where there’s a lot of talking. It’s very soporific. “Tea?” she asks. “Or straight to bed?”

“Tea, please. And a large glass of water, I think.”

“Me too. I’m not quite sure who was topping up my wineglass but it always seemed to be full.” She yawns, too, covering her mouth delicately with one hand. I think of a cat. “I had fun, though. Did you?”