Jack rings the bell of Philippa’s house at 10.30a.m. When Eve steps outside, he’s opening the passenger door of a rust-streaked transit van. As she climbs inside and buckles up, four faces turn to stare at her.
‘Everyone, this is Eve. Eve, this is Jess, Madison, Mikey and Keanu.’ Jack pulls the door shut, walks round the front of the van, and swings himself into the driver’s seat.
‘Are you his girlfriend?’ a voice asks, as Jack pulls away from the kerb.
Eve swivels in her seat. Jess has lank brown hair and tooth braces, and appears to genuinely want to know the answer to her question. ‘No. We were at school together, years ago.’
Jess digests this information. ‘I’ve got a boyfriend,’ she confides.
‘You never,’ says pale-eyed, narrow-featured Keanu. He reaches across and shoves Jess’s shoulder.
‘Get off me.’ Jess scowls. ‘Fucking retard.’
‘You never got a boyfriend. Never will, with that face.’
‘Guys, wind your necks in,’ murmurs Madison, smearing sunblock on her broad, freckled face.
Eve glances across at Jack, who’s gazing serenely through the windscreen at the road ahead and detects the ghost of a smile.
Ten minutes later they reach a car park in a chalk quarry. They disembark, and as Jack makes a phone call, Madison opens the back of the van and distributes KitKats, supermarket sandwiches, water bottles and backpacks. To her own pack she adds a prismatic compass and a pair of binoculars.
As Eve watches, she becomes aware that she’s being watched by Mikey, who so far has yet to open his mouth. He’s probably about sixteen, with melancholy eyes and long prehensile fingers.
‘All set?’ she asks him with a smile.
He nods. ‘Where we’re going, yeah, you know there’s no broadband?’
‘Right.’
‘I’m just warning you. We’ll have to use compasses.’
‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’
‘I s’pose it is, but I do wonder.’
‘Wonder what, Mikey?’
‘Like, is this whole day just a level in someone’s game?’ He gestures to the hills and woods surrounding them. ‘Is this all, like, aworld?’
‘I’m… I’m not quite sure?—’
‘Because if it is a world, where’s the edge? Or is there no edge. And are we PCs or NPCs?’
‘I’m lost.’
‘Me too. Because if I’m a player character, then at least someone’s playing me. But if I’m a non-player character…’ He shrugs his backpack onto his shoulders. ‘It’s like free will. Suppose this conversation, that we think we’re making up as we go along, is actually scripted.’
‘Do you worry about this sort of thing a lot?’ Eve asks.
‘Yeah, I do. I really do.’
They set off behind Jess and Keanu, who are still shoving and swearing at each other. Madison leads, setting a steady pace, and Jack brings up the rear. They appear to be heading for a patch of woodland a few hundred metres up the track.
Bird’s-foot trefoil. That’s what that yellow plant is called. The one we used to call scrambled-egg plant. If you see it, you usually see those little metallic blue butterflies, because their caterpillars feed on it. Memory’s such a strange thing. Who was I then? Is part of me still her?
Madison signals for them to halt. Slowly, she lifts her binoculars and trains them on a patch of grassland some twenty metres away. Eve looks but can see nothing. Madison beckons to Keanu and Jess, hands them the binoculars, and points. Eve and Mikey follow cautiously behind.
‘What am I looking for?’ Jess asks.