I hovered in indecision for a moment – should I go and climb the cairn and try to get enough reception to get Nassim’s voicemail and call him right now, or should I wait until tomorrow when I could go into the town and get full reception and do it properly?

It was easy. It was just so easy, too easy, to let bad reception make the decision for me. I slid my phone into my pocket and walked to the little house.

‘You shouldn’t fall in love with Basil, you know,’ Bette said the moment I entered the kitchen.

I took a step back. ‘Um, okay?’ I said. And then, waiting to become less confused, I said, ‘I wasn’t really planning on it.’

Bette nodded to herself and pressed her lips together, and then, perhaps because I didn’t much like being told what to do by anyone, and perhaps because Bette’s meaning and motive seemed cloudy and suspicious to me, I said slyly, ‘But why shouldn’t I? He seems so nice.’

My grandmother turned and looked hard at me and there was such a strange unease in her eyes that I quickly said, ‘Look, it’s fine, Grandma. I’m really not looking to do anything like that – I’m here to study and to get to know you and Grandpa.’

That seemed to ease her mind, and she turned back to her cooking – though I was beginning to think that calling what Bette did ‘cooking’ was a misnomer. Baking sweets seemed to be her thing, her only thing, because dinnertimes were proving that Bette was truly a terrible cook. Dinner that night seemed to be chops with boiled potatoes and rubbery green beans steamed straight from the freezer. But perhaps I had just been spoiled by Nassim.

Hessel hardly spoke during dinner and left quickly to go back to the stables. I helped Bette clear up and then unpacked the mouse traps I had bought, setting two in the kitchen where I had discovered the thickest crust of poo while mopping. In the little bedroom I set two more, and then looked hopelessly around at the clutter before giving up on the idea of tidying up the room tonight. Instead, I sat on the bed with the aim of clawing back some of the study time I’d lost to coffee and the unnecessary trip into town.

I woke up cold and confused, lying in the dark in my clothes on top of the covers. My mouth tasted gross, somewhere between metal and salmon fat. I stood up and walked into the kitchen. The house was quiet. I turned on the kitchen light. The clock said 12.25 am.

I ran the tap into a glass and stood there and drank deeply. The water froze my teeth but it cleared the taste. I felt disoriented. The set-adrift feeling was back, so I refilled the glass and took it out onto the back porch to see if there was enough moon to see Bromley Cairn.