In the tree, Verity took stock of herself: a cut, throbbing hand, blood trickling down her arm; jodhpurs ripped by the bark; her clothes, heavy and sodden with seawater. That was all. It could be worse. Next, she checked her pockets. She made the miraculous discovery of the hip flask, Jack’s Zippo and two crumpled, slightly damp cigarettes, protected by the case. It was a small comfort to still have these things, these touchstones – little signs of normality, as if her mother and Peter were there in the tree with her. Jack too. She felt again in her pockets but they were empty. The torch had gone. The dark seemed to close in on her and smother her. She could no longer see her horse, stranded by the far trees. How would anyone know she was there?

For a few long minutes she cried for her loneliness, for her stupidity and her failure. For all the wretched things she had done. No one heard and she sniffed, and wiped her nose on the damp sleeve of her mac and her hand. She realised she had smeared her face with blood and licked the line of it down her wrist. The salty tang of her own blood was oddly warm and soothing. She tried to think what to do.

First, she would have a cigarette. The wind seemed to have moved eastwards so she turned her back to the land and looked out to the sea, holding the lighter close to her cupped, shaking hand. Once, twice, three times it sparked into light then was extinguished immediately. Then on the fourth go the tiny flame caught the end of the cigarette enough to light and she dragged on it, sucking and sucking, trying to keep the tar burning. But it couldn’t last. When it was extinguished the loss of it hurt. She wanted to cry but forced herself to take a nip from the flask instead. She held the fiery liquid in her mouth, swilling it around.

Who was out there? Someone must be. And the person who came to her mind was Jack. She thought of him at the dance, his hand on her waist. In a wild moment, she decided that if she got out of this, she would go with him, to America, to the desert where it was dry and it hardly ever rained and to the skyscrapers where you could see for miles. They would ride horses together and he would show her his secret places and it wouldn’t matter where he was from or who his family were. She wouldn’t care. She would paint it all: the desert and the mountains and the sea. Nothing was real any more. She thought that not only was her world transformed by the water but she wanted to be too. It was insane, but it wasn’t impossible. Either way, it was too late to go back now.

*