***

I want to talk about the Norfolk trip, and all the things that happened that day, but I'll first have to go back a bit, to give you the background and explain why it was we went.

Our first winter was just about over by then and we were all feeling much more settled. For all our little hiccups, Ruth and I had kept up our habit of rounding off the day in my room, talking over our hot drinks, and it was during one of those sessions, when we were larking around about something, that she suddenly said:

"I suppose you've heard what Chrissie and Rodney have been saying."

When I said I hadn't, she did a laugh and continued: "They're probably just having me on. Their idea of a joke. Forget I mentioned it."

But I could see she wanted me to drag it out of her, so I kept pressing until in the end she said in a lowered voice:

"You remember last week, when Chrissie and Rodney were away? They'd been up to this town called Cromer, up on the north Norfolk coast."

"What were they doing there?"

"Oh, I think they've got a friend there, someone who used to live here. That's not the point. The point is, they claim they saw this . . . person. Working there in this open-plan office. And, well, you know. They reckon this person's a possible. For me."

Though most of us had first come across the idea of "possibles" back at Hailsham, we'd sensed we weren't supposed to discuss it, and so we hadn't -- though for sure, it had both intrigued and disturbed us. And even at the Cottages, it wasn't a topic you could bring up casually. There was definitely more awkwardness around any talk of possibles than there was around, say, sex. At the same time, you could tell people were fascinated -- obsessed, in some cases -- and so it kept coming up, usually in solemn arguments, a world away from our ones about, say, James Joyce.

* * *