‘Sorry.’ He walked back down to meet me.
‘Can’t you at least tell me where we’re going?’
He shrugged. ‘Let’s sit.’ He indicated the bench and I settled into it gratefully.
We were side by side and I was suddenly acutely aware of his proximity. His thigh pressed against mine and our shoulders touched through layers of clothing. I longed to study his face, remind myself of the lines and contours of his features, but instead I fixed my gaze on the lights of the town twinkling below us in the gloom, like a miniature railway set. I let my mind wander, thinking about all the times I’d come up here over the years – with Rose and Sam, with old school friends, swigging White Lightning from the bottle before puking it back up in the hedge – and, later, when Adam and I would come up here either with other people or just the two of us, the only place we could really be alone. It was incomprehensible to me as I looked out across the town I knew so well and that was filled with so many memories, that Adam couldn’t remember any of it.
I squinted into the distance and tried to make out where my father’s house was but I couldn’t quite see it in the gloom, so I let my eyes wander to the right to seek out mine and Greg’s house, the house we’d started saving for when we graduated and got our first jobs, that we’d spent the last fifteen years sprucing up and making our own – and that he’d very nearly lost – and then across a bit further to the edge of town where Sam’s flat was, before finding Rose’s a bit further on again. I wondered what they’d all say if they knew where I was right now.
‘Penny for your thoughts.’ Adam’s voice broke into my reverie and I jumped.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
‘I could tell. What were you thinking about?’
‘Just—’ I stopped. ‘All the things that have happened to me in this town over the years I suppose. It always makes me think, when I come up here and see it spread out before me like this. I mean, you realise how small you are, how insignificant. How you don’t really matter.’
‘Is that honestly what you think? That you don’t really matter?’
I glanced at him. ‘I guess so. To some extent. I mean I know I matter to some people, and I’m good at my job and that helps people. But at the end of the day, this is a tiny corner of a tiny part of a tiny country on a tiny planet in a vast, vast universe, and we’re just – us. Two tiny specks sitting here on this bench.’
‘Wow. I mean, I thought you might have some profound thoughts when we got to where I was taking you, but I didn’t expect it to happen on the way there.’ He grinned. ‘Still want to go?’
‘Definitely,’ I said.
Adam stood and held out his hand and pulled me up. ‘Follow me then.’
We walked for a few more minutes, following the trail as it snaked further up the hill, through the gorse bushes and bracken that had bedded down for winter until, finally, we were right at the very top. I rarely came up this far because it was so overgrown and remote, and it was so dark now I couldn’t even see my own feet on the unfamiliar path in front of me. In fact, all I could make out was the occasional headlight passing on the road just below us. I turned on my phone torch just as we stopped beside a huge tree, its black arms reaching up into the inky sky.
‘Here we are,’ Adam said, and sat down and leaned against the trunk. He patted the ground beside him. ‘Joining me?’
I lowered myself down to sit next to him and leaned my back against the tree too. The ground was damp and cold but I didn’t care. ‘You need to lie almost flat, and wait,’ he said, and shuffled himself down until he was lying horizontal. Even though the earth felt frozen through my jeans, I did the same. I shivered.
‘Look,’ Adam said. ‘Can you see?’
‘What are we looking at?’
He swept his arm round in an arc. ‘This. Just wait.’
We lay still for a few minutes. My body was stiffening, getting colder, but Adam’s presence beside me was distracting me enough to make me want to stay here a little longer. I heard him light up another cigarette and watched the smoke evaporate into the air. Beneath me, I could almost feel the ground shifting, hear the animals deep below the earth burrowing and scurrying. Slowly the sky darkened another shade, and the stars shone through like lights on a Christmas tree, and suddenly it was just me, and Adam, and the huge, sweeping sky speckled with stars. And I could see instantly what he meant.
‘This is amazing,’ I whispered.
‘I told you.’
We lay in silence for a moment, letting the wonder seep in.
‘I come up here quite often,’ Adam said into the darkness.
‘Aren’t you afraid, on your own?’
‘Why would I be? There’s nothing up here but trees.’
I didn’t try and explain that it was different for me, as a woman, to come somewhere like this at night by myself. I didn’t want to spoil the moment. Adam carried on.
‘Ever since the accident I’ve started coming up here and lying down to look at the stars,’ he said.
‘It must be so hard, not being able to remember anything at all about who you were before.’
