“Don’t worry,” said Heather. “Nobody’11 let you near a call centre.”

At the top, we emerged on a wide stony plateau covered with heather.

Heather said, “Calluna vulgaris. Ericaceous. My favourite plant. Just smell it.”

I stooped to pick a sprig, but he stopped me.

“It’s protected. You’ve got to smell it in situ.”

I bent down and breathed deeply. It smelt of summer and honey. I could see why he’d chosen this flower for his warrior name. The purple flowers were so small that in the distance they just looked like a mauve haze drifting over the hilltops.

Following a sandy track, we came through a small copse of trees, ash, beech and silver birch, and found ourselves in a flat grassy clearing some fifteen metres wide. Set in the grass was a circle of nine stones.

In my opinion they were somewhat disappointing. I was expecting something bigger and more structured, like Stonehenge. These stones were crooked and uneven in size, like bad teeth. They did not look anything like ladies. No one who has seen the basilica of Santa Sofia or the Lavra monastery at sunset, or even certain English monuments, would find these stones of interest. But then Heather said, “Iron age. Three and a half thousand years old. Forerunners of our great cathedrals.”

I suppose that is quite interesting.

“You can listen to the spirits up here,” said Rock. He flung himself down on his back in the middle of the circle, his arms and legs outstretched. “Sometimes, when I lie still, I think I can hear Jimmy Binbag talking. Come and lie down and listen.”

So we lay, the four of us, in a cross shape, our heads to the centre, our outstretched hands and feet just touching. I expected one of them to start chanting some weird stuff at any minute, but nobody did, so I just lay staring at the sky and listening to the breeze ruffling the grass. The clouds were heavy, their undersides purple with rain, with unexpected shafts of sunlight breaking through in bursts of gold and silver like messenger angels. I could feel the closeness of the others, him on my left and Heather on my right, and the silence of the stones. Then, in the silence, I started to feel the closeness of all the other people who had stood and lain in this place over thousands of years, staring at these same rocks and this sky. I imagined I could hear their footsteps and their voices in my head, not hurrying or shouting, but just the gentle chatter-patter of human life, as it has been lived on this earth since time was first counted.

It reminded me of my childhood, when my bed had been in the living room of our little two-roomed flat, and each night I fell asleep to the sound of my parents’ voices and their quiet movements tiptoeing around so as not to wake me-chatter-patter.

The silence inside the stone circle is eerie. It hangs in the air like the huge hush in the cathedral, after prayers are finished. If you lie still, you can hear the wind sighing in the grass like voices murmuring in your ear. Andriy listens. Really, the sound is uncannily like the whisper of human voices. What language are they speaking? The hiss of sibilants makes him think at first that it is Polish-yes, it is Yola and Tomasz and Marta, talking quietly together. They are back in Zdroj. Marta is preparing a feast. It is somebody’s birthday-a child’s. They are drinking wine, Tomasz filling up the glasses and proposing a toast to-Andriy strains to hear-the toast is to him and Irina, and their future happiness. Tears come to his eyes. And in the background someone is giggling and whispering-not in Polish now, but in…is it Chinese? Abruptly, the giggling stops, and turns to sobbing. Then the sobbing grows deeper, and now he sees the miners from the pit accident, struggling out of the mass of fallen rock, reaching out for him with their hands, pulling at him, pleading. His father is there among them, shrouded in that terrible black dust, already formless as a ghost. He knows he has to run, to get away, but he is pinioned to the ground. He can’t move. His limbs have turned to lead, but his heart is beating, faster, faster. And just as it seems the panic will overwhelm him the sobbing turns into music, a voice-a man’s voice-deep and sweet, singing of peace and comfort, easing the pain and rage in his soul with its promise of eternity. Emanuel is singing to him.

He awakes with a start, wondering-did Blessing remember to make that phone call?

Maybe I was dreaming, because after a while I realised that the patter was raindrops, and the chatter was Andriy saying, “Wake up, Irina. Let’s go back. It’s raining.”

The others had already rigged up a large canvas awning stretched between the trees, and underneath it a fire was smoking. Heather was peeling potatoes, and Rock was stirring something in a pot.

“Can I help?” I asked.

Rock passed me the stirring spoon. Then he disappeared.

“I’ll get some more dry wood,” said Andriy, and disappeared too.

“Where are the other people in your camp?” I asked Heather.

He explained that some of them had gone south to a music festival and others, like Rock’s girlfriend, had found temporary jobs in nearby towns to earn some money. Unfortunately, since the success of their court hearing the support of the local villagers had dwindled away, and soon maybe it would be time to close up their camp altogether.

“Where will you go?” I asked.

He shrugged. “There’s always somewhere. Roads. Airports. Power stations. The earth’s always under assault.”

I thought how wonderful it would be to have some new roads and airports and power stations in Ukraine, but I didn’t say so. We listened to the rain pit-patting on the canvas, and the wood cracking on the fire. Somewhere, somebody was playing a guitar.

“Do you like cooking?” Heather threw a handful of chopped carrots into the pot. His fingernails were very long, almost like claws, and full of black dirt.

“Not much,” I said.

“Me neither,” he said. “But I like to eat. When we lived in Renfrewshire, my parents had a cook called Agatha. She was six feet tall and swore like a trooper, but she had a great way with pastry. One day she was making a batch of tarts, when the oven exploded, and she was rushed to hospital, where she died a week later of third-degree burns. That’s enough to put anyone off cooking, don’t you agree?”

“Of course.” I laughed, despite of the gravity of the story, wondering whether it was true. And I wondered how someone who spoke in such a cultivated way, and came from a house with a cook, could tolerate living in such a place, and eating such food, and having such dire fingernails. And I wondered whether he had a girlfriend, and whether she lived here in the camp, and what she thought of his fingernails. And I wondered whether he found me attractive, for he, like Rock, never stared or flirted or made personal remarks like some other men, so I felt completely comfortable in their company. Maybe they are only attracted to women of their own species.

Obviously the woman with beautiful eyebrows has her eye on you, Palenko-but does that mean you have to proceed? You have discussed the weather. You have discussed the stones. Is it time now to select first gear and try to engage? Or is there a time when you say to yourself, OK. I have met the woman I love. That is enough. Bye-bye, end of story.

Andriy shovels the mush into his mouth, crunching on the chunks of almost-raw carrot, glancing up from time to time to check on the eyebrows. The rain is pattering intermittently on the taut tarpaulin, beneath which smoke swirls round the circle of faces. Windhover is seated next to Birch on the other side of the fire. Now her eyebrows are drawn together in contemplation. Such beautiful eyebrows. She is spooning the sludge into her mouth quite fast, and with apparent enjoyment.