Fergus answered her call and asked how he could help, and she explained the situation, amazed the words came out calmly, as if someone else was speaking, someone who knew what they were doing. She described to Fergus the exact location of the big tree, then read out coordinates from a map that Geraldine spread in front of her. It was almost like a dream; Miki felt as if she was flying up near the ceiling looking down on herself with her ruined, bruised face.

‘Thank you,’ Fergus said. ‘I’ll get onto it immediately. I’ll call the special operations group and they’ll have someone up there soon.’

Miki handed the phone back to Geraldine, whose eyes overflowed with pity as she hung up the phone. ‘What are you going to do?’ the older woman said. ‘You can’t go back home.’

Tears tracked warm down Miki’s sore cheeks, stinging the skin. Geraldine pushed past the counter and laid a gentle arm around her shoulders. This simple gesture broke Miki open. The great well of her suffering burst from her in a paroxysm of sobs.

‘You poor thing,’ Geraldine said. ‘You need to be free of that man.’

‘I’m worried about Leon.’

‘Me too.’

Geraldine hugged Miki in a way she hadn’t been hugged since she was a child, and it felt good, a release. Geraldine was soft but strong. She was warm and loyal, a friend to lean on.

‘Now,’ Geraldine said, slowly withdrawing. ‘We need to get you somewhere safe so you can calm down and get cleaned up.’ She gave Miki an umbrella and key and directions to her house. ‘You can sit in the kitchen and make a cup of tea. I’ll be home as soon as I can, but you must promise not to leave, because then I won’t know where you are. Have a shower and warm up, turn the heater on. The drying rack’s in the laundry. Put your clothes by the heater and use my dressing-gown.’

Miki hesitated. ‘There won’t be anyone home?’

‘I live on my own.’

Miki took the key and wrapped the scarf around her face again before heading out into the weather. The wind tried to flip the umbrella inside out, so she pointed it into the rain and hurried down the street.

Geraldine’s house was a little blue weatherboard with white window frames and a line of rosebushes along the footpath. A playground stood across the road near a grassy drain: two swings and a slide, deserted because all the children were at school. Around the back of the house, Miki collapsed the umbrella and unlocked the door. It was strange entering Geraldine’s space; she felt like an intruder spying on someone else’s life.