Harold walked under the heat of the sun, the pelting of the rain, and the blue cold of the moon, but he no longer knew how far he had come. He sat beneath a hard night sky, alive with stars, and watched as his hands turned purple. He knew he should lift his hands, guide them to his mouth and blow on the knuckles, but the idea of flexing one set of muscles and then another was too much. He couldn’t remember which muscles served which limbs. He couldn’t remember how it would help. It was easier simply to sit, absorbed in the night and the nothing that was all around him. It was easier to give up than keep moving.

Late one night, Harold rang Maureen from a phone box. He reversed the charges as normal, and when he heard her voice, he said, “I can’t do it. I can’t finish.”

She said nothing. He wondered if she had thought better of missing him. Or maybe she had been asleep.

“I can’t do it, Maureen,” he repeated.

She gave a gulp down the telephone. “Harold, where are you?”

He looked at the outside world. Traffic shot past. There were lights, and people hurrying home. A billboard advertised a television programme, coming this autumn, and showed a giant-sized policewoman smiling. Beyond stood all the darkness that lay between himself and wherever he was going. “I don’t know where I am.”

“Do you know where you’ve come from?”

“No.”

“The name of a village?”

“I don’t know. I think I stopped seeing things quite a while ago.”

“I see,” she said, in a way that sounded as if she saw other things too.

He swallowed hard. “Wherever I am now might be the Gateway to the Cheviot Hills. Something like that. I maybe noticed a sign. But maybe that was a few days ago. There have been hills. And gorse too. A lot of bracken.” He heard a sharp intake of breath, and then another. He could picture her face; the way her mouth worked open and shut when she was thinking. He said again, “I want to come home, Maureen. You were right. I can’t do it. I don’t want to.”

At last her voice came. It sounded slow and careful, as if she were reining in words. “Harold, I’m going to try and work out where you are and what to do. I want you to give me half an hour. Can you do that?” He pressed his forehead on the glass, savouring the sound of her. “Can you phone me back?”

He nodded. He forgot she couldn’t see.

“Harold?” she called as if he needed reminding who he was. “Harold, are you there?”

“I’m listening.”

“Give me half an hour. That’s all.”