She watched him as he removed them, and let them flap in the wind. He crouched, and unzipped the ankles to make them wide, but it was still difficult to work the legs over his boots, and standing up it was impossible. He managed to get the left one over his left foot, but he was tottering – and he had to sit down. Only then did he realise she was now filming him, and was finding the whole thing funny. When he pulled the trousers up to his waist, she was bent double with laughter: the folds had made his abdomen and hips stick out. He adjusted the waistband, and it was his bottom that looked ludicrous – Maria was helpless.

He started to laugh himself, and she just managed to hold the camera still. At last, the trousers were on and he could move more easily. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. She took it from him and wiped hers. He rearranged his coat, and she adjusted his hood.

‘Ready?’ she said.

‘Totally.’

She did her own hood up tighter, for the rain was now merciless – and they stepped out into it.

25

He had been on walking holidays with his father.

He had hiked as a young man, too – but he hadn’t pushed himself this hard for a number of years. He wasn’t unfit, and the cycling he’d done to the retail park had given him some leg muscle and even some stamina. Nonetheless, the ground grew steadily steeper and he was finding it hard. He was finding it harder and harder to believe he was there, too, and the thought kept occurring that he could have stumbled into the afterlife, with all memories of the train’s actual impact miraculously erased. Walking in this tunnel of wind and rain, he tried to imagine at what point his particular afterlife had begun, because it might have been on the bus with the angelic driver, or when he stepped into the hotel with the helpful manager. Had he even died at Preston? For clearly, Maria was his guide.

There she was, just ahead – and she seemed so real.

She was tireless, too, and kept up a pace that was a little faster than the one he would have set, had he been in front. They were in single file again, and the muddy grass had given way to rock. The path was a vivid gulley, and there were no choices to be made, for it never divided – it had been scored through, and they were two brightly coloured bugs worming along with their heads down. The leaflet said they wouldn’t need to climb, meaning they wouldn’t need ropes and crampons. What they did need was courage, for they were approaching a long ridge, and the drop either side was worryingly steep.

The path was like a tightrope.