Although Clare pretended not to notice, he was blushing. It began at his neck and swept over his balding crown where two clumps of grey-blonde hair perched like the ear tufts of an owl. Despite being flattened against his head by the Basson’s Garden Services cap he wore whenever he was outdoors, the clumps sprung upwards like grass shoots after the first rains. Clare had often tugged them when she was younger. To her, the tufts symbolised who her father was: constant, unpretentious, decent, determined. And, although conversation between them nowadays wasn’t as easy as it had been when she was younger, she understood his reticence. They were alike in that sense. Not everything benefitted from discussion. Sometimes it was better to be quiet and work things out on your own.

“I know,” she said, thinking about how simultaneously exposed and restricted she’d feel in a shared hut, particularly (but not exclusively) with people twice her age. “I’d just rather be alone. Don’t forget, you and Gran were the ones who taught me to enjoy sleeping outside.”

“But what if the weather changes suddenly? It does that in the mountains.”

“I’ll go into the lapa.”

Geoffrey grimaced. “I hope the others aren’t offended.”

She’d looked out of the car window, pulled a tress of hair from behind her ear and curled it around her finger. How could she have forgotten? Her father was concerned about what “the others” might think. She wondered whether her parents had updated their friends about her condition. Whether they, in turn, had speculated about how it would be to have her with them. Had Michelle warned them against watching her at mealtimes?

“They’ll get over it,” she said, trying to quash her discomfort. “You can tell them that I’m claustrophobic or something. I don’t care.”

“Or that you hate my snoring. At least that’s the truth.”

She sniggered.

He glanced at her. It reminded Clare how much her father liked to make her laugh. “The only problem is that then they’ll all want to sleep elsewhere.”

“Ja. True. It’s probably best to say nothing.”

As she stood at the outdoor tap brushing her teeth, Clare looked up and wished she’d paid more attention to what had, when she was a kid, seemed like never-ending discussions between her father and grandmother about the night sky. On camping trips, the conversations could have been lullabies, easing Clare and her younger siblings, Angus and Linda, to sleep. Almost everything she knew about the natural world, Clare had learned from her father and grandmother. They knew a lot. Especially Gran. If she’d been a more patient kid, Clare could’ve learned more.